I once read an inspiring quote that said: ‘All things you read on the internet are absolutely true’ – Albert Einstein. If this quote seemed a bit off to you, congratulations! You have used your skills of reasoning and deduction to ascertain that it is indeed false. If you believed the quote you just read; good luck.
Buddy, my slightly overweight puppy is happily sitting next to me as I play around on my laptop looking for something to do and I stumble across an article that said ‘DSTV cancels subscription fee’. Immediately I called ‘bull’ and scrolled past. See, I didn’t even click on it because I knew that if they had to cancel the fee, the business would implode and stock prices will plummet because there is no payment model to sustain the thousands of employees or the company. Nothing ventured, nothing gained because of not clicking.
Few moments later I see somebody shared the post with the caption ‘WooHoo free TV’. I know he didn’t read the article because that’s what we do these days; we accept everything on face value to not strain our brains by actually thinking if it might be true or valid and we do it with people as well as information. There’s a magical site called ‘Google’ and it contains information, the stuff used to make decisions which could make your life better or worse, but that’s the choice we have to make.
I’m not implying we have become stupid (yes I am), I just know one thing: we have become lazy as hell. We would rather read a headline or listen to a half truth and run with it because we feel it’s inconvenient to actually find out the truth. The same principle applies to people and our interactions with them; we take it as it seems instead of what it is like the guy who cheated on the girl and treated her like utter rubbish is forgiven when he gives flowers for the first time. See what I mean?
Buddy trusts the sausage I am holding in front of him because he sees it and knows it’s a sausage, but what he doesn’t know is that it is actually stuffed with veggies. That will teach him to accept everything on face value.
