In Black and White

 A while ago, I went on a cruise with my sister who was almost a year younger than me. We were close until puberty and then things changed. We each became our own person.  We went to different schools: mine academic, and hers technical. There were teen wars often in the room we shared and when our parents divorced, we also, went separate ways. She left school and took on a successful job and later married.  I took up a teaching career and married later on, too.  As adults we moved and grew apart but in later life, to bring us back together, I suggested we take a sister cruise. Our kids were grown up and we  had the time and resources. It all went well and was fun originally. But one day on the ship, an argument ensued over an article. It had a Canadian reference. The letters CA appeared and she swore that made it Canadian. I knew it wasn't, and gave evidence but that didn't work. There was a new rift that didn't go away.  What happened seemed an example of how easily people can believe what they read or see and are convinced by it. It doesn't matter if there is proof to back it up or not. I had a housekeeper also, who  who swore that Martians had landed because she read it in a newspaper and that made it true. I couldn't convince her that the paper was not a reliable one and the piece was fiction. This kind of obtuse thinking can be applied to what influences social media victims  these days. We  turn to a social media and there it is all pretty and bright and happy. If it's said by someone we admire, we believe it without question. We want to. It's something like the Santa myth.  And far too many lethal tragedies have occurred in this way. We can tell our kids or show them but it still happens over and over again. The answer?  Stepping "outside" of the box or away from it, better, might help. That little black box habit has a dark side.