When we interact with the world and others, are we really engaging the external environment or are we really just interacting with our thoughts and ourselves?

A scenario to illustrate this further: Alex sees a fat man on the street. He thinks this guy is really fat; therefore he must be living a very fortunate life. Whether the fat guy is really living a fortunate life, we will never know. But to Alex, it is true at the moment he conjures the 'judgement'.

My opinion is that all impressions and judgements are personal and from oneself. The 'external' is just the way it is. The external is really not directly related to the thoughts that arise within us. The thoughts that arise are interpretations of the 'external'. Therefore all judgments must originate from within oneself. When we dislike someone, do we really dislike the person or are we disliking the image of the person that arises in the mind?

Metaphysically speaking, we see that each one of us is just consciousness self-awaring of ourself! This is quite abstract and hard to explain. The individual points of self-awareness's interpretation of the external are 'tinted' with the habitual patterns that were inherent. We (the consciousnesses) see through our own lenses of habitual conditioning.

An example to illustrate the habitual influences:

When viewing a single object, three individuals will have 3 different views/interpretations. But none of the views is the TRUTH. They only reflect images of the TRUTH.

So' what allows 'points of awareness/consciousness' within an environment or world to 'understanding' one another? It is 'cultural conditioning' and a fairly common/standardized set of system of beliefs that binds and creates the impression of interaction. We literally live in a huge belief system, confined within our thoughts and conditions!

Looking at another level above, we see that all self-awarenesses are different 'viewpoints' of ONE source focusing in different directions.