The Credible People

In the age of the Web, credibility of electronic messaging and good source material is a search for inspiring belief in factual information, that, at best, is full of objective and subjective components. People have a tendency to believe anything they read that is backed by a source, whether that source is non-biased and accurate or merely speculative. Facebookers comment; bloggers blog; and sources spew out huge a mixture of factual and opinionated information daily.

Failure to recognize and judge opinion is often at fault when people swim in vast oceans of information and aimlessly latch onto something that fits their initial conjecture in an effort to stay afloat. Much more credence is put in rumor that adds to a previous belief than is put into fact that requires a complete 180 degree shift of prior opinion. In fact, one of the hardest things to do is change the belief of people who have already formed an opinionated concept. Of course, some crooks know this and use preconceived half-truths for their advantage.

Doesn't judging credibility always involve some risk? The truth, itself, is often complicated, elusive, and full of irrelevant details that add to the difficulty finding its real nature. Most well-meaning seekers of truth usually use their heads to guide them to matters that the heart also eventually understands. Add to that double nature the fact that telling the truth often involves punishment, so being credible can be most painful. If a suspect confesses a crime, if a child "owns up" to a lie, if an honest citizen reveals facts that expose danger, their honesty will likely produce a punishment. So, credibility isn't always rewarded.

Facing controversy is part of maintaining credibility. I find it necessary to do so at times. The mechanisms used by humans to understanding important problems and solutions are not scientific gauges that accurately measure a degree of success. People who claim to be purely successful should remind themselves that One such person walked the earth. I understand that failure and failing is something that I still repeatedly do. No amount of self regret or self manipulation can change my past. The best option available is to live the life I can live.

I think no one else knows the true struggles of one other person. To relate, to console, and to desire have boundaries when the target is the human soul. Each of us has purpose, unique as it may be, and we all are nothing more than another pitiful wretch in our deeds. Is someone more credible than another in all ways? My answer is "Absolutely Not." The only real degree of credibility we acknowledge in each other is the perception of a person produced by the receptors of our brains. Maybe we could not even face the reality of an actual human truth.

“The moving finger writes, and having written moves on. Nor all thy piety nor all thy wit, can cancel half a line of it.”  -- Omar Khayyam