Not My Conspiracy

This weekend I was in Los Angeles for business and stayed overnight with Luke, Desi and Mairin. I really enjoy spending time with them and feel completely relaxed in their presence. We told stories, looked at photographs, acted silly at times and at others shared our thoughts on the important things in life.

As the evening wore on past midnight, Luke and I talked about what has become his favorite subjejct--conspiracy theories. If you've never been initiated in this world, your first reaction typically is that they are all wacko (the theorists and the theories!) and you can't believe anyone you actually know could be swallowed up in it. And I suppose that Luke, like his friends and cohorts, is accustomed to encountering thick walls of skepticism.

My reaction wasn't much different, and despite giving Luke virtually no encouragement, he left me with a handful of DVD's to take home. I told him I would watch them because I respect his opinion, and so I have, starting with theories that the Sept. 11th attacks were an inside job, a "false flag" covert operation conducted by our govenment to galvanize public support for the erosion of personal liberties and build resolve for future military action. Watching the DVD's has caused me to think more deeply on the possibility of such a conspiracy.

Surprisingly, the presenters make a very compelling case. In fact, they raised enough inconsistencies and unanswered questions to make me wonder whether something so unthinkable could really happen. And of course everything was presented with facts and supporting science and summed up with undeniable conclusions that indeed something very nefarious had taken place. I can see how intelligent people become converted.

But it has been my experience in life that we often choose what we will believe. And once a world view is adopted, it is only natural to filter virtually everything through those beliefs, finding support and substantiation in random and diverse snippets of information. It happens with politics. It happens with religion. And it certainly happens with conspiracy theories.

I have known a few people attracted to this field. One finds commonalities--they are typically intelligent, well-read, passionate and zealous. But almost without exception, over time they become manically focussed in their pursuit of evidence and secret information. And even if I grant some substance to the theories, I have never seen their efforts result in social or political progress. But I have watched as the obsession begins to rule their lives, leading to no good.

So I won't be joining the ranks of zealots suspicious of the government, the media and those that have the power and the resources to pull upon mighty strings that dictate world events. I won't join them because their notions are ridiculous, because really they are not. I won't join them because I can't take the ridicule--for I have made myself ridiculous enough on occasion to be able to bear the brunt of it in public. But rather, I won't become involved in the pursuit of hidden plots and machinations because it's not how I choose to live my life.

Having said all that, I fully expect that someday, somewhere, someone is going to uncover an awful government conspiracy that will save this great country. Yes, and I suppose that I will then be humbled, grateful and apologetic. But until then, how many more good people will go to their graves angry, suspicious and unfulfilled, having missed so many of the blessings that life has to offer in their single-minded quest for justification of their single-minded quest?