Truth

Where do you find truth? Are you looking for the truth? I am. And I have a hard time knowing where to begin looking for truthful answers to my questions. But as I make my way through this world full of lies and cover-ups, conspiracies and oppression, I have found some bits of truth that are leading me to a surprising conclusion.
First, you have to ask the right questions. I cannot stress how important it is to begin with the right question. If you ask the right question, you will then get closer to the truth. Many times the right question is at the root. It is the question that precedes all the other related questions.
For instance, many people are now asking if it is safe to consume the fluoride in our tap water (see my previous post Poison in our tap water). There are many studies that say that fluoride is not safe to ingest, and you can also find studies that say that fluoride is beneficial to your health. So it is hard to get to the truth. How do you know if it's safe, when both sides seem to have valid support for their "yes" or their "no"? But the problem is, not many people are asking the right question... The real question is: Does anyone have the right to put anything in our tap water? Then the answer is clear- no they do not!
Next, you must be able to sort out what is fact, what is opinion, and what is fiction. I remember learning in grade school how to discern fact from opinion. It was pretty easy for me. But now that I see news headlines with fact, fiction and opinion intermingled in such an expert way that I can hardly tell the difference, it makes me wonder if this lesson in fact/opinion should have been revisited in high school.
Knowing something to be 100% true can only come from first-hand experience. But you still have to be careful, just because you saw it, doesn't make it true. If a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, when the hat appeared to be empty, it's obviously not a reliable fact that he somehow produced a rabbit out of thin air. You must know all aspects of the situation, (don't just look in the hat, hold it and reach your hand inside) and then you know it to be true.
Another important thing to remember is never turn assumptions into truth, and never adopt someone else's assumptions. We have all done this at one time or another. We see a story on the news about a person on trial for a crime, and many of us have condemned them to be criminals before the trial has even started. What happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'? It's like it no longer applies at all. You may think I'm crazy, but I actually sympathized with Casey Anthony. God help that poor girl if her worst crime was the neglect of that child. Her life is over, and it does not matter if she killed her baby or not. We all condemned her. And God help me if I am ever accused of something I did not do, because I know I will be condemned, no matter how I've lived my life up to this point.
The hardest part, for me at least, is trying to have the right perspective. It is impossible for anyone to have a clear and perfect perspective on anything. The reason is because we have all been through situations and experiences that lead us to think differently. It's impossible to remove influence completely from your perspective, and therefore, our perspective is heavily clouded with bias. So our own perspective is cloudy, and on top of that, everyone else's perspective is cloudy, and so together it makes for one hell of a foggy mess! How could you ever find truth in such a fog?
Another difficult aspect is knowing where to look for truth. There are so many perspectives on any given subject, who do you believe? Do you spend countless hours cross-referencing their facts and information, weeding out embellishments and exaggerations, their flaws in research and their bias? It would take forever, and still then you would never be able to reach a solid truth.
So where is it? I guess I should apply my own first rule in seeking the truth. Ask the right question. Instead of asking questions like "Where do I find truth?", "What is fact, and what is fiction?", maybe I should be asking the preceding question: "Do I need to find the truth?"
And there it is, the question we should all be asking. And then the answer is clear. Yes. We should all be seeking the truth. It does not matter if the absolute truth can or cannot be found. All that matters is that we keep looking. Never give up, and you will learn amazing things.
It doesn't matter what your question is.What's the purpose of life? Why did God put us here? What is my purpose? What's going on in this country, really? What can I do about it? What matters is that we all keep striving to find the best answers to our questions, and then we will be striving to do the best we can with what we have been given.
So, start asking, start looking, and start living. You are not living if you're not asking questions and seeking the answers.

note: Regarding Casey Anthony, the question to ask is not "Did she do it?". The question for all of us who do not know the absolute truth is "Is it any of our business?". We will never know if she did it, so why are we speculating, condemning and attempting to spend any amount of time on her or her case?