Why should I believe you?

 

In this time of misinformation and confused reporting from viable news sources, why should I believe what you say without vetting and fact checking?

You believe your family for you know nothing else. Extended family brings some insight from cousins and aunts and uncles, but they are still family so it must be true.

Then you meet a stranger.

What is your name? Really? A name carries a lot of baggage like birthing location, political assemblies, and history of power and wealth. Your name is on the ancestry tree of the previously famous family.

What do you do? The answer reveals what the stranger wants you to believe of his/her importance. A title in a recognizable establishment implies a steady smart icon of the community. How long the title adds to the prestige and wealth of their position.

To keep prying (or sharing notes trying to find a point to bond with) history of schooling, relationships, living space and area, type of mobile vehicle(s) and number and names of offspring.

Dig deeper into the lexicon of culture to books read, television or movies watch, performances attended, fashions, political persuasions or even religious beliefs could become topics of conversation that could become fluid with the answer.

Reading demands some effort to combine the words into someone else’s thoughts. Videos and movies require less effort to sit and watch someone else’s interpretation of history, fantasy, color, sound and movement to wash over you without any interaction. A live performance art is a personal one-on-one to make you laugh or sing or cry at the words and movements of someone who looks just like you. They hear the applause.

Other than emotional connection, that is all we know about people (friend or foe). Is the information you know or were told about the other person truth (or dare)?

Sitting on a long plane ride, striking up a conversation with a stranger in the next seat, what do you say? Sloping hash at a corner store burger bar will guarantee snoring in your ear. Being the CEO of a multi-million-dollar software corporation can make for a long intense make-believe play that teases the listener and keeping the stand-up story teller alert and creative.

The best is to go into a crowed conference room or adult beverage sports bar establishment or a religious meeting hall and give a different name and story to each stranger you meet and when you leave, they must congeal their notes to find out who you are (were). It depends what you want to trail behind.

What I knew about my wife’s history was what she told me. There were no photos or newspaper clippings, selfies, family videos or friends to confirm and add to all I had been told to believe. The rest of what I knew about her was how she reacted to life in my company. What she did when I was away was creating her own history. It could be a secret or whatever story she wanted to make up? We never shared confidential information or beliefs or desires.

When you tell me a story, I’ll just put it in your folder full of opinions, statements, experiences and gaps of communications. As time goes by, it may be reviewed with new knowledge or aged wisdom to reflect how it affected the readers life?