Editor’s Page

By Victoria Schmidt

The Truth Is Out There

The Truth

 

 I think that is a line from “The X-Files.” A trip through my daily emails has convinced me of one thing. Lies are all around us. Just hear me out. All. Governments. Lie. All politicians lie. All dictators lie. All drug companies, oil companies, and certainly all insurance companies lie. The world’s population is lied to at such a phenomenal rate that it requires a lot of digging to get to the truth. Everyone lies. And, yes, we even lie to ourselves. 

And now so many lies have piled up that it has divided the people in the world as never before. Lying is everywhere. Our daily news could simply be a roundup called “Today’s Lies” or “Breaking Lies.” We have been lied to about so much, by so many, that it is now almost impossible to discern the truth.

This has been going on forever. It’s just come to the point where we simply stopped calling people, politicians, and governments out on their lies. And it has led to a world that is more divided than ever before.  We have become complacent. We stopped speaking truth to power. This is not to be confused with speaking BS to power.

There are a lot of good people in the world. I truly believe in the goodness of people. But I have lost my ability to trust what I would call those with agendas. I believe in asking questions and challenging the information I receive. But as a society, we seem to have lost our ability to question and challenge without the ugliness of name-calling and disrespect for alternative points of view. We too readily jump to conclusions about people. We have also lost the perspective about our own individual rights and responsibilities. And in doing so, we have slowed our ability to make change. And the need for change has never been greater. 

Nothing has proved this as much as the current pandemic. What we are seeing is a worldwide population that is reacting to the inability to trust the information from their governments and their health protection agencies. As a result, many make poor choices and suffer the consequences with illness or death.  It has separated families and borders and interfered with international trade. No country has been immune to these challenges.

I have no answers other than to ask that people do their own research. Read the books, not just the media. Because the media no longer has the objective of telling the truth. They have the objective of selling time on their station for ads, space in their newspapers. Read the little stories. Try to be objective. Back away from the fear and those who peddle it. Every day try to do something to make this world a better place. Be kind to one another. Don’t start arguments. Listen. Decide for yourself what is best to do for you and for the ones you love. Take personal responsibility for your actions. Read about how other countries are handling the problems of the pandemic and know that yours is not the only country that has problems to solve. Understand that viruses can mutate. That’s why they change the flu shot every year. Accept that there are good people trying their best to keep us safe. 

Realize that we are standing IN HISTORY. While we have had similar situations in the past. This goes further than the end of your face and has nothing to do with curtailing rights. It has everything to do with curtailing a pandemic. And climate change. And wars. We can be complacent no more. The world has changed. We can fight that change. . . and lose. Or we can change with it . . . to everyone’s advantage.

 

March 2022 Issue

El Ojo del Lago - Home Page

For more information about Lake Chapala visit: www.chapala.com

 

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