Fact Of Life #8

This is SERIOUS………………….

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……NOT!!!!

No, of course this is a joke, however, ANYTHING, if it’s carefully scripted and professionally presented, can be made to appear FACTUAL, when in fact MOST INFORMATION available in the world today is NOT accurate and is often VERY OBVIOUSLY BS!

Now, I could say that it’s fiction, however, there’s an important difference between something that isn’t factual and something that is pure fiction. You see, fiction is deliberately made as fiction and the producers of that fiction (be it a book, a movie or a pseudo-documentary like the one above) TELL you it’s fiction.

Fact or Fiction

Personally, I like fiction. I like a lot of the crazy things that are made up in people’s imaginations. It makes life interesting and fun. What I DON’T like is NON-FACTUAL stuff.

Something that is NON-FACTUAL is quite different from fiction because it is presented as fact by the inventors. They will tell you something is an absolute fact, and then have absolutely NOTHING to back up their claims. And I DO mean NOTHING!

I could give you thousands of examples, but I’m not going to give you ANY examples. Here’s why. YOU (and I) believe in various things for a great many reasons, NONE of which are substantiated with facts. While this may sound odd or just plain wrong, think about this:

World Views

Everybody has a different view of the world (religious, political, social etc.). So, you must ask yourself, if they all tell us different things, how can they possibly ALL BE CORRECT? The answer, of course, is they CAN’T. If follows that if they all disagree, there’s a very HIGH PROBABILITY that they are ALL WRONG. Wrong, in this case, meaning that the so-called facts they are presenting, are IN FACT, NOT FACTS at all.

While these beliefs aren’t necessarily wrong FOR THAT PERSON, they are STILL NON-FACTUAL. A person is entitled to his or her beliefs about anything, regardless of how ridiculous those beliefs are.

Of course, in a few areas, people may agree, but in many they will not. However, they’ll still present THEIR version of “facts” to their friends, children and co-workers, but what they’re really presenting are NON-FACTS based on their BELIEFS.

Do You Believe?

Just realize that MOST “information” out there, whether it’s in a book, a movie, or told to you by somebody you respect is PROBABLY NON-FACTUAL. It’s most likely nothing more than THEIR OPINION. At worst it’s most likely somebody else’s OPINION and probably somebody who’s been dead for centuries.

How Knowing This Will Help You

If you GET this concept, it will help you in many ways, not least of which is you’ll have a better understanding of people; you’ll be more accepting of other people’s beliefs, however weird they are. But most importantly, you won’t be SUCKERED into believing THEIR NON-FACTUAL beliefs, passed out freely as “information”.

As they say in Mission Impossible, “Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to sift the facts from the NON-facts.”

Use This Knowledge To Your Advantage

Knowing this can help you avoid being manipulated by people (well meaning or otherwise). Some will use this information to get money from you; others will want your time and your effort.

The next time you read or are told something as a fact, just take it with a pinch of salt, because in all probability, it will be either well intentioned, OR manipulative, NONSENSE.

THAT’S A FACT! (in my opinion).

Luke.

P.S. If you MUST believe things that aren’t backed by empirical evidence, at least be sure that those things are YOUR ideas and not somebody else’s. If you want to believe in nonsense, make sure it’s YOUR nonsense!