And it sticks. I mean, focus your attention in that little world of meanings and symbols long enough and you’ll tend to get stuck there.
But reality is infinitely larger than that little world. So to stay there, in that little world, to have your perspective altered like that all the time, is a bit unhealthy and insane.
But this is considered normal. Encouraged even.
Words are maps to the terrain of experience/the universe. But the problem with words is that they define strict categories (you can cope with this by establishing a spectrum and not binary things: “not as reasonable”/“sillier than X”) and those who rely only on words and not their own eyes and reasoning will be confused and frustrated: reality was more complex, it required actual analysis and not just theorising based on others’ words, A didn’t lead to B because your premises only made sense semantically but not in reality.
In the analysis sure, words, thoughts and symbolic stuff are just little 2d cartoons. Obvious stuff. But in practice we treat them as God’s own titty, flowing with the milk of truth.
There is a willing suspension of disbelief going on there. Like, if I don’t pretend that your idea for the word “dog” is the same as mine, then the conversation just collapses. So I let my grasp on reality slide.