Trust

Every now and then I like to watch the Barrett-Jackson auto actions. I’m never going to be able to afford any of the cars they sell but I still enjoy looking at beautiful cars. Week after week people will show all sorts of cars and the commentators will give you explanations of what kind of restorations the car has been through, the history of the car and even focus on some of the details that may be either custom or were specific to that year and model. I don’t pretend to be an expert on any of the cars they show. I can guess the decade of most cars and on a few I might be able to get a little bit more detailed, but not much. The only possible exception to this would be air-cooled Volkswagens. I’m still not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I know more about them than any other make.

Well a few months ago they did a show that had quite a few classic VWs come across. I missed the show but I read quite a bit about it on a VW chat room that I visit frequently. From the discussions in the chat room it became quickly apparent that the commentators just had no clue what they were talking about when it came to the VWs. But that didn’t stop them from repeating nonsense with the same confidence that they did with other cars.

Now I don’t fault anybody for not being completely familiar with the brand that I choose to take particular interest in. People like different things and I’m completely OK with that. What bothers me is something different. Up until know I had taken them at their word that they knew what they were talking about. It is clear that at least in one category they were clueless. Sure the guys talking were probably just the talking heads recycling the facts that somebody was telling them about in their ear bud, but up until now I had trusted them. And the confidence with which they gave the facts was partially to blame for my lack of skepticism.

The show has been somewhat disillusioning since then. How do I know if what they are telling me about the Mustang currently on the block is true? Considering how much hogwash they dished out when it was the VWs up there, how do I know? Up until now they had my trust, but now I find myself asking questions. How much of this do they really know? How much are they just making up out of whole cloth and hoping that nobody will call them on it? I still watch the show periodically. The cars are no less amazing. I just have to take the narrations with more than a few grains of salt.

I had a similar event happen recently. A friend was telling a story about another subject that I know quite a lot about. In telling his story he messed up a few of the details with which I am familiar. I can look at the point of his story and his overall point is unaffected by the slight deviations. That being the case I found myself analyzing every detail. If he got that wrong, what else is not quite the way he told it?

As always when these things happen to me I get introspective rather quickly. Do I do this too? How many times have I embellished what I considered to be a minor detail? Have I sacrificed somebody’s trust in me just to tell a little bit better story? Am I doing it right now? Perhaps I need to take better care to be sure that I’m not guilty of the very same thing that I find disillusioning in others.

Totally Looks Like...

So there is this website where people post pictures of two things that look similar called totallylookslike and a few weeks ago a friend had an experience where he found two book covers that looked really similar. Well the same thing happened to me last night. I was in bed Reading Proofiness by Charles Seife and Victoria comes up stairs and puts her book on the nightstand next to mine, Slights of Mind by Stephen L. Macknik. You be the judge.

Memories

Although the numbers are little off in the third verse this song always reminds me of my folks.

Comments

Recently I've had a few comments come to me via email because they didn't want to create a blogger account. So, I've turned back on the anonymous comments. We'll see if this works...

"A Whole Bunch of Blind People"

I have no idea what exactly started this conversation. Sunday evening Noah and Eve were down in the den watching Dr. Who and Noah comes up and begins to pontificate. This is a common occurance. Victoria and I have learned to listen closely when he's at the podium.
“Hey, Dad. The way I see it if somebody pucks your eyeball out and you go pluck out theirs pretty soon you’re just gonna have a whole bunch of blind people.”
I assured him that he was exactly correct and then pulled up a quote that sounded very similar to Noah’s epiphany.
“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” Mohandas K. Gandhi
Noah though it was cool that somebody else had the same idea. What I thought was so cool is that this basic philosophy seems like complete common sense to a ten year old. Yet it was also rather sad that this logic completely escapes most politicians.
As I read this over I think I prefer Noah’s phrasing to Gandhi’s. Something about the childish use of the word eyeball and pluck reminds me that it came from a ten year old and makes it seem whimsical yet no less profound.