Ramblings About Truth-Bomb Tossers

I like to do an occasional "thought for growth" post on my Facebook page, summarizing deep thoughts that I've had recently in a few sentences or a short paragraph. 

This week, my thoughts were seeded from a podcast by Personality Hacker. I've tried to come up with a few succinct sentences that would get the point across, and have been unsuccessful. The thoughts just keep going and going. So, I thought I would make them into a rambling blog post in order to get them off my mind. 

In today's world, we have a plethora of information available to us via the internet. Anyone and everyone can put out an opinion or article on the internet for us to see, even if it has no basis in truth or reality. Our feeds from Facebook and other social media, are filled with posts that are just as likely to be untrue or twisted or biased, as it is to be true.  Fake news is currently "performing" better on these platforms than what is real. Society, as a whole, is not that good at parceling out the good from the bad. We tend to make our decisions and judgments with a strong emotional bias, either consciously or unconsciously. Perpetuating this, our FB feed is generated with an alga-rhythm designed to "give us what we want to see" thereby concreting our biases and not allowing us to see a wider perspective than our own. 

Do we trust Facebook to develop and implement policies to ensure fake news isn't posted? Or is it up to us to make this determination? While many of us aren't talented at making decisions sans emotions, or interested in the time it takes to fact check every news article that comes our way, there are a few folks out there who have a natural talent for being able to clean slice data without emotional attachments, and are better at assessing what is actually true. I like to think of these people as truth-bomb tossers. We all know a few, but they are not very common. These are people whose brain operates on accuracy as the status quo. It's their way of life, rather than a tool they pull out when they think it's necessary. Think of folks such as the fictional Sherlock Holmes, especially the recent TV film version by Benedict Cumberbatch. (Maybe, minus the drama.) These are people that are amusing to watch in action from a distance, but when they come into our lives throwing their truth-bombs at us, it's a lot less comfortable. They are able to assess data, all types of data, without being hindered by emotional ties and obligations. We might judge them to be cold, uncompassionate people who will say numerous unkind things to your face without any regard for your feelings, when really, they just have a penchant for accuracy, for truth at any cost.  It's their natural talent, their gift to the world, (bless them). It's up to us to find value in what they offer. It's more important than ever, in these times of profuse information, to rely on their skill/talent.

This all rings very true for me because I have some personal experience with this. In my own household, I have a very practiced truth-bomb tosser. At times, it can be very painful and frustrating. However, over the years, I have also seen the benefit of it played out over and over. 

I also have one lesser-practiced truth-bomb tosser, and possibly even two. I am woefully outnumbered! (Based on a personality-typing model, MBTI) Myself? I happen to be more of the emotional-bomb tosser type. How this plays out in my household is that I get a nice, fat emotional bomb ready to toss out there and make a big impact.  "THIS will show them", I say to myself. I then heroically toss my bomb, it lands, explodes, and the other members of my household instantly turn into very. solid. bomb shelters.  My emotional bomb blows, and I end up being the only one who is shaken. Brilliant. I TRY to practice truth-bomb tossing, with limited success. I can see their value, but when I make an attempt to toss a little truth-bomb, I end up running after it, asking "Are you okay? Did that hurt? What can I do to make it better?" It makes for an interesting dynamic. And you can pretty much imagine how it goes with the truth-bombs coming at me from the household experts...

Another characteristic that we see showing up on social media frequently is righteous indignation. I consider this indignation to be knowledge of the truth, or that person's perception of the truth, shoved into another's face. Perhaps all wrapped up in an emotionally saturated burrito. It is judgement without mercy or compassion. It is almost always a one-sided perspective. We KNOW we are right, and therefore better, and we will hold it against you, because you are so foolish to believe what you do! I suppose this is how emotional-bomb tossers operate. And it often works! With today's ease of communication, we have emotion-bombs pushing us around all the time!  One tugs us this way, the next a different way, and before long, we don't know what to believe, who to believe, who to show allegiance to, who or what to trust. So what do we do?  We start looking out for #1. Me. I'm going to get mine, and forget the rest. And now we have a deeply divided society that cannot, will not, see things from the other point of view. So sad. So the more we lean toward presenting "just the facts, ma'am" without emotional baggage, the more we can help people see what is right and wrong for themselves, often without feeling stupid, accused, or defensive. We have such a long way to go, but being aware is always a first step.

So, have you identified any truth-bomb tossers in your life? You know, the ones who always end up being right? (So annoying! ha!) Are you willing to see their value, even though they make us uncomfortable? We can develop the skill to clean slice data ourselves, to a certain degree, but we also need to culture a reliance and appreciation for the value these people offer our society today.