If you believe everything you read ...

Then it is better that you stop reading; Chinese proverb.

Yet in the cynicism of our modern moderately media savvy society. There are times where I wonder those reading what they read, read it with the possibility that what they are digesting may be:

  • Wrong
  • Moderately incorrect
  • Biased
  • Not answering the original question

So many facts, yet there seems to be a willingness to accept the words of well known sources as the final version. The same goes for media outlets to shout about individual scientific studies as 'fact'. In spite of the reality that each new study is consumed into the pantheon of knowledge to be eventually accepted or rejected.

In my mind, a fact is always a transient affair. It can sit in my mind as something to be challenge and open to adjustment when new information comes along to enhance or degrade my original notion. To enhance this, I tend to be at ease with many cognitive dissonances. Having contrasting and contradicting ideas sitting beside each other aware that they may contradict.

This works in my work as well as belief. Keeping a mind prepared for new ideas to inform the value of the ones I already hold.

So ... if you are someone with set ideas on anything; believe what you have read and quote it verbatim without checking. I would advise you to read a little bit more and open you mind a little bit wider.


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