Truth

 

After you crawled out of bed looking for that missing hour and trying to figure out how to start the coffee machine and wondering who is that old person in the mirror is, did you walk out in the cold rain in your underwear to get the newspaper in your driveway or wrap out in your blanket to wait for your screen to refresh and read the headline in the news?

Do you believe it?

Once upon a time, your newspaper was a reputable news source with trained and dedicated journalist researching details and presenting the facts in an inverted triangle. Worldwide news was telegraphed by the Associated Press or the United Press International to the local newsroom to be picked and chosen by editors to fill the pages full of sport scores, stock market trends, local politics, crime logs, wedding announcements and comics.

Radio presented some news worthy sounds and television brought breaking news until everyone with a Smartphone started filming events with no research or background as entertainment rather than informed and investigated information.

Today, whatever your intelligence or bias, you can find a format that will feed you whatever you want to hear and believe. Even if you try and research ‘facts’ with Google, Bing, or Internet Explorer and what you read that is presented to you might be ‘truth or dare’ or ‘believe it or not’.

When you listen to it enough, it will become propaganda and you will follow the lemmings. Think about religion?

So now bombarded from every angle by influencers and viral videos and podcast of every type, how do you decide what is ‘truth’ and what is ‘fiction’?

Go to the public library and dig through the Dewey decimal cards for whatever books that are allowed for viewing. Stay up late to watch the talk shows with celebrities whose thought you might want to follow. Saturday Night Live segments are no more news that the tabloids at the grocery store.

Speech from religious speakers, medical professionals, lawmakers and Indian chiefs intimidate us all. Friends are no betters for they choose their own sources of what is true and spread their own slant on their opinions.

As you read this, you may believe that whatever the Beatles said is gospel. You may have your favorite basketball player or racecar driver or political pundit whose words influence your belief of reality.

No matter which angle you decide to follow, there are natural disasters. There are lots of people killing each other all over the globe for whatever reasons. “News at eleven.” There are animals (two legged and four legged) wandering the streets and children are crying. Rich people are rich and lots of people are poor and scrapping by. There are educated smart folks trying to figure out a cure for diseases and there are folks trying to hack into your bank accounts or steal your children or create the ultimate weapon.

Good news or bad news is available as freedom of speech. Is it spectacular presentation or quiet conversation? Even history and science are being re-written everyday.

Hot topics like education, abortion, crime, any-ism, taxes, religion, medical, addiction, war… etc. will be in every newspaper, news show (comedy or not), social media platform and increasing everyday. Sit over a cold brew with a friend and argue about a bad call in a sports bar or raise your blood pressure over four women around a table spouting off their uninformed opinions to increase ratings, we will continue to morph our ideas and opinions. It is called life.

In the morning, if I open my eyes and see the sunshine coming in through the window, I have another day. If I can sit up in bed and stand on the floor, I’m alive. The air that was there yesterday is still filling my lungs and my legs move me forward, so I get another day.

Bombs aren’t falling on my head. I’m not coughing. There are no weird splotches on my face and the yard is not on fire. There are no gunshots. The earth is not shaking and the water is still coming out of the facet.

So if you believe the bearded lady or the rubber man is fine. Whether news is entertainment or just a way to waste your time while bingeing shows that are not worth the effort when you could be out in the garage detailing that renovated 54’ Chevy or assembling your kids’ jungle gym that will be delivered to the trash in two years is your choice. The news will still be there. There will still be terror. There will still be emotions. There will still be people telling you what to think and how to behave.

Believe it…. Or Not!