Creating Belief

Last night, while walking around Chinatown feeding feral cats, a friend of mine, tolerated my blindness and helped me see. We got talking about 9/11 and a comment I had made in an e-mail I had sent to her. I stated that I did not believe an airplane had flown into the Pentagon (I have to mention her comment as I am smiling at the memory…she said she did not respond to my e-mail because she did not know what to do with it…). Rondi, my friend, is someone that knows more about politics than I, and more about world happenings than I, so I usually ask questions and listen.

I listened again last night. What I discovered, aside from the evidence of the plane flying into the Pentagon, was something a little more interesting to me. I discovered that I wanted to believe that there was a conspiracy. I think I have come to find comfort in believing that the US government, and ours to a lesser degree, conspire on most things. If you look you can see evidence everywhere. All those documentaries cannot be wrong, right?

The reality is that they can be and some of them are way off base. Truth is something that is flexible and in order to determine what is and what isn’t, one needs to take the time to check the source. I noticed that I believe what I want to believe. Interesting, I thought I believed what made sense and was actually true. Which on some level I was, taking in the information, sorting out what made sense and then taking that to be true. My truth. However, what happened to checking it out?

I think, with the 9/11 incident I chose to take hold of the conspiracy theories because in some strange way it gave me some comfort. It was easier to accept that it was an “inside job” than believe that there is a real threat to my safety from some unknown unseen enemy. Interesting.

I read a long article printed in Popular Mechanics. It was very interesting and “debunked” most of the conspiracy claims. One by one, knocking them down with concrete facts about what happened on that day. So, now, I am over it.

I still believe, however, that Monsanto, the corporation that holds a GMO soybean patent is out of control. As were and still are to some extent, the tobacco companies. However, I think that conspiracies are not done on such grand scales and often what appears to be a conspiracy is simply bad judgement. Corporations, being money focused, tend to lose sight of what is good, It remains our responsibility to stay informed and when required, kick those companies back into line.

I guess the trick is to stay in the world of possibilities. Imagine what it would take to conspire and execute a 9/11 event. There would be so many people involved that it would fail before it got started. We may debate how it was handled; did Bush do a good job? Was the US response appropriate? How do we prevent such acts of terror in the future? But to distract ourselves with wild speculation and theories that simply do not fly do us all a disservice.

It is great to be able to look inside and see what had me believing. It was great to re-evaluate and be aware of the process I have been using to make decisions and create my beliefs. I feel humbled and with a new awareness. Believing does not make it true.

Thanks Rondi.