Common Sense: Imagine a reality where nothing is real
By Raymayne Gray February 22, 2013 10:40PM
Raymayne Gray
Updated: March 25, 2013 6:06AM
When Lance Armstrong confessed to Oprah Winfrey that he used performance-enhancing drugs, I wasn’t surprised. It only reinforced what I believe to be the new reality in which we live: Don’t believe anything you see or hear until it is fully investigated and can be proven with 99.9 percent accuracy (nothing can be 100 percent, which only adds to the paranoia).
It all started for me when I found out Santa Claus wasn’t real. Shortly after that, I found out wrestling was fake. Shortly after that, Milli Vanilli got exposed.
In high school, I had this “weird” social studies teacher who had a strange theory about the moon landing not being real. We never laughed so hard in our lives. It was my first encounter with a conspiracy theorist (they also add to the paranoia).
Everyone is paranoid because you can never be sure of anything anymore. It seems as though everything I learned as a kid is now either untrue or has some kind of crazy conspiracy theory behind it.
For example, why is it that all of a sudden Pluto isn’t a planet anymore? Pluto’s ingrained in my heart and mind; they have a Disney character named after it. I’ve heard people say Christopher Columbus was supposedly a criminal, and Thanksgiving was supposedly a huge massacre of Indians. That kind of information can rob you of your childhood, even if you’re an adult.
Nothing is safe from uncertainty, not even sports and entertainment; which I cling to, so I can try to escape reality. Reality finds a way to creep in.
Sammy Sosa vs. Mark McGuire was the most entertaining thing to happen for baseball in years. It’s now up for questioning. San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds: His achievements come with an asterisk. It’s to the point now that if anyone does anything great in sports, you need to drug test them immediately.
I can’t even enjoy listening to music, because now there are all these wild allegations about some of my favorite mainstream musicians being involved in Illuminati-type secret societies that dictate and control which artists appear in the Top 40 charts.
It’s so crazy nowadays, that even reality is up for question. The events of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina (the levees breaking) are rumored to be staged by the government. I remember watching a movie about the 2000 presidential election, called “Recount,” and seeing footage of a warehouse filled with uncounted votes. Since you are alive and reading this column, you can also add, “Don’t believe anything the ancient Mayans say” to the list.
If you want to ask why are people so jaded, I think it’s because we have seen and done everything, and guess what? None of it was real.
Email Raymayne Gray at flizzipz@yahoo.com.
