Nothing is what it seems!!

Having lived in China for the last five years, I should know that nothing is what it seems. Half of the stuff you see and read is opinion or is a made-up ‘fact.’

I have been swapping some updates with friends and family on several different topics that are in the current news cycle, and my one takeaway is that what we are told in the media is so far detached from reality on the ground.

Think about it. You see one picture of a flooded street, and the propagators of information tell you everything is flooded… your mind works to fill in the gaps. And to you, everything is flooded. That is not the case. The reality is a different story, but by then, you don’t care. You have completed the narrative to your satisfaction.

The media tells you that there is mass incarceration in parts of China, and yeah, guess what, there is not. 

But you fill in the gaps. You make shit up. It is now confirmed for you by you.

This is the power of the mind or of your imagination. If you get half the story, you will inform the other half from your imagination, and suddenly you have the entire account all worked up.

You have become an authority on the subject. You know everything there is to know about, say, vaccinations and masks, Brexit, Afghanistan and every conflict in the middle east that is happening right now.

You will take that ‘full story’ and explain it as a complete narrative, but you will protect the source by saying a friend told me this…. Or I heard from a mate that this happened. Blah blah blah.

The reality of the story is you made half of it up. You didn’t mean to do that. Your brain did it. It filled in the gaps. We are lazy thinkers as humans, so it is not your fault. If you want more of the truth, then you do have to work at it. You have to put in some effort beyond Facebook and Twitter. 

But who does?

My guidance is always going to be the same. What you see on the mainstream media is not the reality. It is designed to misdirect or sell you something. In its simplest form, to sell you advertising, in its more complex form, to get you to buy into the need for military intervention and sell you the cost of the tax dollars on a war that you don’t need or want. 

Someone benefits from it, and it isn’t you. You are too busy being distracted by the front-page story about the dromedary who is being sued by an Arabian prince who fell from its back and broke two of his five Rolex watches. You admire his palace of wealth and dream that it could be you one day once you get the breaks. You feel sorry for him.

Yes. This is the type of top-class distraction your Television will sell you in a way to keep you busy. Don’t fall for it. Get up and switch it off. The hardest thing you can do these days is lift the TV remote control and press that red button at the top. 

Turn it Off.

In the words of one of my favourite television programs from my childhood days…

Why don’t you just switch off your television set and go do something less boring instead?

Why don’t you?

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