The subtle art of changing your mind...

Hello Friends;

 

  Today the sky is orange.  That's right, I'm here to tell you that it's orange....in color, texture, and even smell.  Orange I tell you.

  You doubt me?  That's ok, I expect you to.  For years, your whole life even, you've looked up into the heavens and found a blue looking back at you.  I tell you, you were deceived and you need to wake up.

  You still doubt me.  That's not even a question, but a statement of fact, isn't it?  Well, that's ok, because I've bought a local news show and the news broadcasters are going to tell you that the sky is orange today.

  You will believe that something is still wrong, but you will begin to wonder how it is that these distinguished people find themselves seeing an orange sky when you only see blue. 

  Tomorrow folks at the water cooler are going to tell you about the news broadcast and say how the sky does seem a bit "oranger" than they recall.  "Yeah, I looked up and Wow!" says John, your nearby office cubby resident.  "There it was all along...an Orange Sky!".

  Soon, everyone is talking about the sky being reported as Orange.  They've learned how wrong they always were to see only the blue.  "Yep, that there is an Orange".

  This may take years, and you are going to get weary of telling people you see a blue sky where they only see orange.  In time, it will become the position of the government that the sky is orange - likely due to a considerable amount of pac money.  So, tell me......what color is the sky?  It's orange, isn't it.

 

   Such is the existence of the American culture.  News, it seems, is less about giving information than about presenting the "right sort" of information.  And, despite what we may want, despite what we may hope, after a bit of being chased and nipped at by the hounds of the establishment of what is real and what is false, we succumb if only for expedience.

  There's not one of us that would be offended to be referred to as a sheep being driven where we don't want to go.  But, the secret of the sheep is that they really just want to be left alone to eat and bang the woolies, maybe do the occasional baa'ing at the moon when the mood strikes, and sheep will only accept being driven for the hope of getting back to those preferred activities quite soon.  The fear and "safety in numbers" instinct drive them as much as the dog does, and all with the hope that someone else will be picked off so that they can be back to munching grass and that crazy thump of the wool.  If they ever thought far enough past those things they'd realize that they far outnumber the dog, are bigger individually than the dog, and if they were to stop and face the dog there would be little the dog could do to drive them further.  But, it's to the point where they've forgotten that they were ever not being driven, forgot that maybe they could be free.

 

  So, I guess the challenge today is:  What are you being bullied about?  Do you prefer the herd or do you want to be able to look up into the sky and say "I see blue".