Making up stories
A few days ago a friend of mine told me that orange juice has small amounts of cyanide in it.
Naturally I didn’t believe him. If orange juice does indeed have cyanide in it then I should be dead right now since my mother has made me drink it since I first started bringing a lunch to school.
If his comment hadn’t been so outlandish I would probably have panicked, being the gullible person that I am.
Lot’s of people tell us stories that they say are true but might be a tweaked a little. Sometimes they do it to put the story in a different light or simply to make it more exciting. I know I’ve done this plenty of times when I’m talking about something that isn’t particularly interesting.
But when people with power start to fabricate stories, it can become a major problem. We trust, or at least should be able to trust, what the government tells us is true.
But what if something happens that they aren’t too proud of? The example that comes to mind is the story of Pat Tillman. Shouldn’t the act of being in the Army be heroic enough for us? Why change the facts so more people will like the story?
Perhaps the story itself doesn’t bother me as much as it should, but it definitely makes me lose faith in the people with power.
— Avanti Chajed