The making of a Conspiracy Theorist
Is it Nature or Nurture, environment experience or a psychological disorder, a predisposition or misfiring of brain synapses? Yep, it is probably all of these or some combination of them and more.
Some folks like to consider me one of those CT’s. I personally don’t consider myself such, but when you hold thoughts and potentials outside of the mainstream people feel the need to discredit you in some way, or place a label on you. How dare you not go along with what everyone else feels is the absolute! So I have a lot of fun pretending to don and wear a tinfoil hat with antenna properly adjusted. It’s okay for others to make fun of me or discredit me, or label me, I really don’t mind. We need more laughter here.
So how did I get to this place outside of the mainstream? Gosh, it just had to be, didn’t it? I started early. As a very small child I found out that adults lie. Adults lied to me all of the time. I almost always found out about the lies, usually sooner than later. Adults always told me it was for my own good that they lied to me. It never was, really. So I concluded that adults did not think I was very smart, or smart enough to know what was good for me. Yet, I had some very strong sense that the truth was always better no matter how bad it sounded or seemed at the moment. I still tend to question everything. Nothing personal, I just do.
I also have always had a strong proclivity to believing ANYTHING is possible. Most normally that limitless possibility thinking is very positive and focused on optimistic outcomes of the highest order. However, it also spills over in all those lies we live in every day and the possible agenda behind those lies. It is not something I focus on a lot, but I presume the possibility. Sometimes after accumulating more information and more experience the possibles become probables. I keep the options open. Too many try to pull the wool over my eyes too often for me not to. But I still expect the best outcomes available, and even better than those that seem available.
When I became thoroughly convinced I could not believe my government, ever, was when I was in the Army in 1965. The lies about Viet Nam were more than enough. However, I was stationed at White Sands Missile Range, a top secret base of weapons and spy equipment technology testing. I had no reason to know or see the things that people kept insisting that I look at and oooh and awe over with them. My job did not require it, but people of all ranks just could not stop themselves from showing me this stuff. So much for taking seriously the security concerns of “eyes only” and “cryptic” classifications, let alone “top secret.” No one of any rank seemed concerned about their casual displaying of such information. This is not a blanket statement about all secret information handled and processed in and by the military in all installations everywhere. This is just my experience in my job at White Sands.
The planes, missiles, spy equipment toys I saw there were phantasmagorical. Unbelievable at that time. So when our Government showed them to all via the news media, 20, 30 or 40 years later as THE LATEST AND GREATEST, NEWEST STUFF OUT THERE. . .I laughed. So it wasn’t so new and hot technology to me when it was unveiled all those years later. My thoughts about this have always been if this is what they are displaying as the newest and latest, what do they really have that they are already using and not telling us about? I’m just the curious type.
And when we do uncover or the government reveals to us some “secret” or lie that they have been telling us for however long, or continues to keep secrets that should not be secrets at all, their reasoning is it is/was for our own good, and we just couldn’t handle the truth. Gosh! that sounds just so much like what I heard at 3 years old, doesn’t it?
I relate to those who have been thoroughly trounced and discredited in their life and times, yet proved to have been more right than loony. People like Galileo, Newton, Columbus, Einstein, De Vinci and many, many others. They were big dreamers who held possibilities and later proved possibilities to be probabilities, probabilities to be fair certainties. No I surely don’t put myself in their class or level of brain power or accomplishment. But I sure do understand their limitless potential thinking.
So here’s the deal these days. I am skeptical of it all until or unless I have enough information to push me to either the yea or nay column. Sure, I am still sometimes hoodwinked, but not often. And yes I remember distinctly that all lies usually have some elements of truth in them, that’s what makes them believable to those who choose to believe them. I seem to be extraordinarily good at detecting lies and liars, not surprising having been surrounded by them all of my life.
I take everything I hear, see and read with a grain of salt, but still option to hold things in limitless possibility, especially if they are optimistic and for the real common good of all.
I feel certain that things, despite the horrendous mess our world seems to be in at the moment, will turn out in the very best possible way. Regardless of what we may have to go through to get there. Maybe we can’t even see how that is possible, but I believe it is possible and that it will come to pass.
There is no expectation that others should or would believe as I do. But maybe enough of us will that things will change and change dramatically for the better. Thanks for listening and please feel free to offer your opinions whether confirmation of my “craziness” or something else. I don’t mind. Really I don’t.
What about you? Are you a strict logic absolutist? A mostly logical nonconspirist? A bit of a disbeliever but not willing to go too far outside the lines when you color? Or a wild dreamer as I am? Or something Else? Just curious and interested if you care to share.
Here’s to a far better world than the one we are seeing now,
Hugs
Shirl
Nice post Shirl. I envy your ability to expect positive outcomes! Color me a terminal cynic. Unfortunately these days I am often right. When I’m wrong, that makes it a pleasant surprise!
thanks keepinon. It is very understandable that you and many many others are cynics. Pretty hard not to be or become one.
I am just the “Cockeyed Optimist” that the song from South Pacific is about. Born that way. Had no say in the matter. I have always been digging through the horse dung looking for the pony.
Hugs
Shirl
William Faulkner: Nobel Prize Speech
Stockholm, Sweden
December 10, 1950
btw, call me a CT too. We are lied to and lied to, and the alternate theories that ring true are more credible to me than the official lines of garbage propaganda.
I’m so with you friend. And thanks so much for the Faulkner quote. Stunning! Gave me chills. Don’t know if I ever read it before, but geeze that guy could write!
I’m currently reading a biography of my fellow Mississippian, William Faulkner, and I’m proud to claim any kinship or tribal link to him that I can… Of all the things he ever wrote, the Nobel Prize acceptance speech is my favorite, for obvious reasons, I think. I am glad to have an excuse to share part of it – especially in times like these – with people I care for.
Excellent! Faulkner is wonderful to read. I don’t blame you for wanting to claim any kinship you can.
Love ya blueneck
and big hugs,
Shirl
Well, on the theory that all Mississippians are inbred cousins, and I’m a seventh generation Mississippian, and my dad’s folks are from North Mississippi like Faulkner was….William Faulkner must be my cousin! 🙂
(((((shirl)))))
of the best. I know we can make a difference. Part skeptic, part dreamer and [art hard worker. I too can see and tell the lies most time and bust my ass to ecpose them for what they are. We can dream the dream because we are working to make it happen!!!!
You are so right,refinish. We CAN make a difference and each in our small or larger ways we do make a difference. We can all say that we need a truck load of lumber to build this house, but if just one will pick up a 2×4, measure and cut it and nail it in place, others will begin to pick up their hammers too. Before ya know it, lots of folks banging away making a house.
It WILL happen. It is happening.
Hugs and loves,
Shirl
Like I said earlier, when I’m wrong that makes it a pleasant surprise!
Then I hope it is a very pleasant surprise when it comes your way!
Hugs
Shirl
Thanks for giving me a place to put my mind tonight.
I grew up in a neighborhood where all my friends were Catholic. I was not. They went to the Catholic school and I went to the public school. This meant we played together in the fall and spring evenings and summers.
Though not all of us were the same age, we were close. When they prepared for first communion in second grade, our dress-up play was being “nuns.” Now nuns in that era wore different habits. We wore our collection of our mothers’ passed along slips and half-slips, high heels, and pocketbooks. Imagine, if you will, a bunch of little girls tripping around the neighborhood in high heels with slips covering their heads. 🙂 I don’t remember exactly what we did as nuns. But I was right in there.
When we were 11 and 12, they began to prepare for confirmation. And I had begun my own religious instruction. As in the way of kids, we had some deep discussions on the way of the world. In one religious discussion, I was informed that I would not be able to go to heaven, nor would my family because we were not Catholic. I remember going home in tears over this, deeply upset, and talking to my mom. She told me there were many ways to believe, all of them were just different paths. Though comforted, the experience left an impression.
Then there was the junior high (and high) school “American” history books. Everything was presented as if they were discrete events that happened, resulting in the problems being solved. The one that made me question the history I was learning was a brief paragraph about Elizabeth Blackwell. She was the first woman to attain a degree in medicine in the U.S. This is what the text sounded like to me: “Though she was hassled a bit, she got her degree, becoming the first woman doctor in ‘America,’ leading the way for others.”
Reading that stunned me. Not that I had a lot of contact with doctors or hospitals, but all the doctors I had met or read about were men. All the books had women as nurses – I had never even thought a woman could become a doctor! And this information was presented like it was no big deal – used to be a problem, but no more.
Well, that got me to wondering, if everything was already figured out and solved then how come neighbors were going on strike in the mills? And how come having a Catholic president was such a big deal (even though he might not think my family could go to heaven). And how come…?
And I read. Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, the scene where the bankers foreclose, saying they were sorry, but they could do nothing to stop it, cause it was The Bank that made the decisions – caused a major WTF?! (Though I wouldn’t have put it in those words, cause I didn’t know “F” at the time.) So I began to question “business” and the way of “business.”
Stories have helped me to understand that people can see differently. If I accept that each human is unique (not special), then I must accept that each will experience the world in a different way. Their truths will be theirs.
It seems to me so much of western thought and drive has been in the area of science, making leaps and bounds – a blessing and a curse. Yet, we have not put nearly the energy and time into figuring out how to live together. “Globalization” without preparation for the clash of cultures. And throughout history the “haves” wanting to stay “haves,” using whatever means possible, and the “have nots” being used and abused and struggling – tribal kleptocrats, religious kleptocrats, government kleptocrats, corporate kleptocrats…
Ah Shirls, sometimes I wonder if in the biblical story of Adam and Eve, “What if they didn’t just each take a bite of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? What if they stuffed themselves? What if we knew more about good and evil and how to recognize and choose?”
People will be people. And in the ordinary can be found the extraordinary.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us. Not just the quote above, but the entire piece. It is an interesting experience growing up wondering and always asking the questions that often others don’t want to answer, or perhaps don’t know how to answer. Many of us have had a very different experience of this life than “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best.”
And boy, is “What if….” ever one of those never ending questions. I always went the direction of What if there is no good and evil after all, only different understandings, misunderstandings and inability to consider anyone outside of our tribe or different as having the same human qualities we do.
The Adam and Eve story is an interesting little story to try and explain to a very unsophisticated humankind sort of how we got here on planet earth to begin with. We probably still aren’t sophisticated enough to truly understand the science and symphony of it.
How to choose involves what we deem the long history of humans on planet earth (Just the few thousands of years that we are currently aware of, anyway) and what we have been able to learn from what doesn’t work so well and also what we are unwilling to learn. The more expanded our learning process, the better choices we are able to make.
There are changes in the air. Shirl says. Heard it straight from the Stars. People are going to learn that fighting, killing, hating, hoarding, greed, out of control egos, and selfishness do not work. They are much smarter than the governments of any country, so they will demand it from those in power. They will demand that power be relenquished and that any governing body must SERVE the people, not the other way around.
When? It is beginning now and it will continue to grow until it takes hold everywhere. How long? Ah gee, you know I don’t know that. The timing of things in the Stars is different from here (if you travel far enough, time doesn’t even exist). . .so there you have it. The Scoop from the Stars (bet you already knew it anyway).
You heard it here first and you heard it from Shirlstars. . .so what ya gonna do?
If you can convieve it, believe it and hold it in your heart and the forefront of your intentions. It’s a plan worth helping to come into reality on planet earth. What can we do as individuals? Listen to your heart, shut out fear, know that things are changing and whatever your heart encourages you to do, then that’s the thing to do.
Hope you don’t think I am picking on you or singling you out here, dear Tampopo. Your words just caught me in mid-flight and triggered a response.
I am not intending to intrude on you or anyone else’s beliefs about anything. So please, I mean no disrespect or dishonor to anything that any of you hold as your beliefs or thoughts on the subject. This is just my view and my stardusty words. Take them, leave them, ignore them, or enjoy them…But you heard it here first (well except for all of you that already know this. . .LOL!)
Tampopo, you are in my heart,
Hugs to you
Shirl
Having experienced at age 11 that my friends didn’t think I would get to heaven, I eventually realized that I could believe whatever I wanted. 😉 Even better, I realized that I could make up my own beliefs! No logic or proof needed.
KnoxvilleProgressive offered this site a bit ago and again the other day, Astronomy Picture of the Day, which takes the breath away and gives a different perspective.
Be well, dear Shirl. And thanks again for this diary.
Thanks luv. That is one of my most favorite pictures, it looks even grander out there in the galaxy, up close! he he he.
I am always well, thanks for your good wishes. We are singing much the same song, it seems to me.
Hugs
Shirl
If you like the APOD, you might also like the ESPOD. Less spectacular in some ways, but usually quite interesting.
>>Or a wild dreamer as I am? Or something Else? Just curious and interested if you care to share.<
I believe that what we can see, ( thus know,) with our five sense and rational mind isn’t even an infintesimal speck of what there is to see and know. I think that whatever I can “see” is only the very thinnest veneer over the first of nearly endless layers of the thing, or idea, or person, I am viewing. Coming to the realization late in life, as I have, was extremely disconcering for someone who was fairly sure I already knew everything about everying truly important! Ha!
Now, (usually but not always), when something gets me down, I find comfort in this: my anger or my sorrow, or my cunicis, is understandable, given what I am able to see at this moment. This view..this “layer” most certainly does seem dark.
But knowing that there is still so much that I am not “able” to see fully yet, leaves room for hope..that what is ahead, might possibly still be for the greater good of all concerned, somehow.
I need to remember to allow myself to feel whatever I am feeling at the moment however, because like it or nmot, I am still human, and humans have emotions that need to be tended to. If I do not allow myself to have the full range of them..including anger, dispair, etc..how will I be able to feel the most beautiful ones, like love and joy?
Bottom liner is, “I don’t know”. I don’t know more than I DO know, and I have to learn not only how to live with non-knowing but how to enjoy living while I do not know! Which leaves me with only one sure and tangble posession. NOW. This moment in time. It is here, it is mine, and I can choose what I do with it.
For right now..I am OK with non knowing. I am content with doing what I can, from where I am, in this moment, to add to the positive side of the worlds balance. Ten minutes from now, I may be a froth-spitting raving maniac over some other piece of news, but for right now, here with you all, I am at peace. And I can feel that far off hope that I can see no evidence of at all, with my limited vision.
Perhaps it is the realization of the many layers and maybe even some of being at our human age of life. . .but I don’t know, but I know. Possibly not so easy for some to understand what we mean by that, but after you think you know most everything you need to know, you realize you just don’t know. And certainly NOW holds the only knowing that we seem to have or comprehend.
I would suppose the knowing I mentioned from my trip to the stars is the knowing of ulitimate optimistic outcomes of anything. . .
There is always hope.
Hugs
Shirl
Whose fault is it?…we it is my fault of course. I chose my path to follow. I had beacons out there that showed me lights, of course, but I connected those dots that I felt I wanted connected. It has always been that way with me. I have always bucked the norm. I have strayed from what ever was called “normal”, guess that makes me abnormal…:o)
I had a dream and I made that dream come true, thru hell and high water, I achieved this. I am sure many of you here did just exactly that very thing too.
As of the past 7 years of my life, I have considered myself a wearer of tinfoil hat. Why? Cause I did not believe like others did. I am seeing I am not alone out there in this world of the informational highway of life and education.
Shirl, I think once ppl such as you an I come upon some sort of reality, we rejoice in finding this.
I love ya girl, even if you are army…:o) <<snark>>
Stay true to yourself is what it is always about anyhow, isn’t it.
Hugs back at ya….
True to self. . .probably one of the most important things anyone of us can aspire to.
Thanks Brenda
Love ya
Hugs
Shirl
Sitting on the CT bench with ya : )
Sherlock Holmes says something along the lines of
When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
None of what has happened in the entire world since George Wrong Bush makes any sense… except that his administration is the cause and makers of it all.
yes… I think they either KNEW and did nothing because it would help them turn this country into a fascist state or KNEW and AIDED… the bombings on September 11.
Damn fucking straight they knew.
Damn fucking straight they are in cahoots with Big Oil and Big Pharm..
Damn fucking straight they want to continue poisoning our bodies, make them sick.. you can’t bill healthy people.
Oh Janet, you are such fine company. Here is a great big hug for you, for all you do and for all that you are.
Love ya
Hugs Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggsssssss
Shirl
Whose fault is it?
“Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”
–Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Naval Treaty” (1893)
Thanks for the rose mythmother. Without the flowers how mundane this world might be.
Great quote too.
Hugs
Shirl