Because The Truth Is Really Out There

“And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

— Revelation 20:10

You'd think it was end of days. The charismatic false prophets and presidential candidates, the unpredictable global terrorism, the rapturous disappearance of hope and goodness from mainstream everything, the reality TV shows, the endless selfishness and selfies, the anonymous toxicity of social media and the rush to judgment, and Fox News.

Okay, okay, maybe that last one isn't quite fair. Too much of mainstream media today doesn't do well in the fact-check department anyway. Today the level of bullshit disguised as free speech and universal truths is astounding. It's like we have to play Mulder and Scully, to debunk UFO conspiracies and monster sightings while watching the news, or reading the newspaper or magazines. Except for my NPR. Don't be knocking my NPR. Or my Economist.

We're having to debunk misinformation all the time otherwise. We're tormented day and night forever and ever. The truth just isn't out there anymore. We're the ones thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur to suffer fools and demons.

"I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters.”

Jesus H. Christ. I still don't know what to do with that one. In full disclosure, the Mama and I really loved his reality show Celebrity Apprentice. Not ashamed of that at all. Train wreck for a cause and all that.

But I digress. Ah, to again be the childlike discovery of things anew and to entrust the scientific method of investigating phenomena, learning new things, or unlearning previously learned things.

And not going to the mat solely because admitting your wrong is not an alternative. Instead, complete fabrication to spur reactive action is the path tread more often.

Blech. These are things we're teaching our girls to avoid. That they should embrace the scientific method and come to their own positions based on queries and objective facts and the filtering out of the bullshit. Not to outright doubt faith and believe in beliefs (that don't hurt others or yourself), but it's no accident X-Files' Dana Scully is a female (and am so glad the show is back).

Beatrice and one of her 1st grade classmates entered their school's science fair this year. They wanted to determine if different fruits floated or sank in water and why.

They discovered that size and weight were not the only factor in whether the different fruits floated or sank. They learned that there was another piece to this experiment – density – the amount of space the materials of an object take up in it’s own form. The mango was denser than the orange and apple, for example, so it sank.

Both girls love to "do science" now and we hope the years of living science will never stop for them, that their objectivity, sense of mindful fairness and imaginative wonder will never cease.

Because the truth is really out there, sinking like fresh mangoes to the ocean floor, while the rest of the rotting hot-air filled fruit creates marine trash vortices that swirl endlessly within us all.

Let's clean it up and bring it up, kids. We're not ready for the world to end.

#BhivePower