> There's an interesting psychological process here that I don't think I've seen described before. That psychological process is actually ever-present, except

> There's an interesting psychological process here that I don't think I've seen described before. That psychological process is actually ever-present, except it just that we often do not notice it until it is explicitly pointed out, like when the older fish asks the younger fish: "how's the water?" in This is Water by DFW [1]. I remember encountering it a long time ago when I came across this pithy quote for the first time: "education can take a man to any height but character keeps him there". It turns out that there's quite a few of these that have been codified into common English expressions: "He fell to a new low" "She was terminated at the peak of her career" The reason why these sentences do not seem nonsensical to our brains is because we often equate reputation with ascending a (physical) height. When someone of high repute engages in questionable behavior, of course our brain naturally associates the consequence of such behavior as a fall--similar to any accidental descent from an elevated place. There are a lot more eye-opening examples in Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff et al [2]. 1: https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/ https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/ 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphors_We_Live_By https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphors_We_Live_By