how come we don't even begin to communicate about certain thing? how do certain narratives pre-emptively short-circuit our understanding, engagement, communication, community, and growth? this video is my perspective and was banned by youtube as hate speech (reposted there with background sound track to interfere with content analysis)! I do think I broach some new ideas here and if you agree please consider sharing.

most of us aren't engineering specialists or forensics experts but we all have faculties and can generally perceive and evaluate information. but we're not seeking out conspiracy and instead of jumping to conspiratorial conclusions we recognize when topics transcend our capabilities and defer to experts, generally trusting that things are relatively ok.

yet many narratives have "glitches" or as i refer to them, "low hanging fruit" - parts of the narrative where "common sense" fails - which glitches can either aid to wake us up, or, as i argue, lull ourselves deep into complacency. a discrepancy gives us a perspective beyond taking the narrative at face value - its like how a poor editing job in a movie reminds us it is a movie! as a teacher said, the door into the jail cell is also the door out, but only if we recognize the door; and we can only get out of jail if we recognize that we're in jail! Both truth and lies can be weaponized, but both can set us free. the pivotal point is not the narrative itself but our role.

when we accept narratives at face value despite 'glitches' we agree to compromise our common sense and forfeit that understanding, engagement, communication, community, and growth - we isolate ourselves from our own lives. we can no longer trust our eyes, our minds, our senses, our selves; this is reinforced because we don't dare broach the topics and instead talk about inanities, as T.S. Elliot described, the rising tension of the question, "do I dare disturb the universe?" is allayed by the "taking of a toast and tea." it's not even whether we actually accept the narrative at face value, but we become disempowered and thus the inert constituents represented by the accepted narrative.

I discuss impossible phone calls and a photograph which unhinges accepted narratives, "alternative facts," truthers, chemtrails, fluoride, media, and our role in keeping ourselves asleep.

There are so many unmentionables, so much fringe information - conspiracy theories abound. Yes, "red herrings" and "fake news" exists but many conspiracy theories draw on a legitimacy of facts, though the context is skewed because we just don't have the bandwidth to what seem to be outlier theories when our concerns are more immediate; besides the fact that we've got to work for a living. Facts on all sides get stymied and thwarted because we have to navigate around such overwhelming inconvenient truths. But facts don't need to vanquish each other - if they just come out into the open perhaps some truth will emerge. Let's put cards on the table.

What if some facts are deposited only in the most outlandish theories … can I be open to facts without subscribing wholesale?

And most important, what do such pursuits have to do with my own wellbeing, my own growth, my own role? What if these inconvenient facts are levers whereby I face or look away?

A friend objected that we don't really know what "Truth" is - and I guess I agree. perhaps like Jesus objecting that he was not Good, only God is Good - but we do have "Facts."

#waitwhat? #questionthenarrative