"To be, or not to be..."

Hamlet faced a crisis, as did his country of Denmark. To face the truth, or to flee from it and live a delusion.

Today, many of our peoples throughout the world believe their opinions are just as valid as truth. When they hear something that agrees with their sentiments they easily come to accept it as "truth," and argue its side, despite having done nothing to prove whether it was actually true or not.

When I was very young, I recall being a big fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme. His martial arts movies were wonderful. Then, one day someone I respected said with authority that, "Van Damme is just a gymnast." I carried this notion around with me for the next year, and when Van Damme came up in a conversation, I repeated it, "Van Damme is just a gymnast." I was 12 by the time a friend of my oldest brother's, when I said this, corrected me saying that actually Van Damme is a top class championship kickboxer. i was stunned by my betrayal as a fan of Van Damme, that I could so easily accept and spread lies about him. From that moment on, more or less, I was much more careful to accept hearsay, or what was popularly accepted.

If you go to wikipedia, you'll see a very nice biography of Jean-Claude Van Damme that defends my still held notion that he in fact was an expert martial artist and fighter. How can you trust the source, wikipedia though? Van damme is not a controversial figure, so wiki would not come under pressure to lie and/or distort the truth of his history, so Van Damme's background on there can be generally accepted as truthful, even if there are slight errors.

The point here is that it's relatively easy to find out a more or less truthful understanding of non-controversial topics. I.e., just look up an answer on the internet. If you wanted to, let's say, investigate the true history of Christopher Columbus, wikipedia might be somewhat helpful, but unfortunately will fall far short in regards to knowing the true history of this figure. Why is this the case? Columbus was a controversial figure even during his life, and lived in a time where conflicting sides vied for influence and power, and he was caught up in that fight whether he wanted to be or not. If you're interested in doing a historical investigation, or even one based in the present, feel free to shoot me a mail.

-JoRye Starlife