CredibilityCheck - First Entry

Strange that I'm doing this. I never thought much of blogs and wondered what all the hype was about. But now I'm bored and tired of just thinking my thoughts. So I'll do what a lot of folks are doing now, waste web space (if one can actually do that) implying that my thinking somehow is more valid than everyone else's.

When thinking about the title for this blog I had some trouble coming up with an apt statement of my views. But in the end the idea that just about everything and anything I hear or read requires a credibility check; to determine its truthfulness or factual standing. So many people are saying so many things and putting them out here as "the truth," that I just have to stop everytime I hear something and evaluate the statement. Its getting so that communications have slowed down in the process of everyone checking out everyone else.

Thus a blog about the credibility of various statements we see and hear on a regular basis. Now, the first entry to this blog, for instance, would have to check out the veracity of the statements I've made herein. In fact, are things the way I've described them? Or is it just my personal view and therefore nothing more than whining? I'll leave the world to be the judge of that.

On the other hand, this might just become one more inefficient means of spouting off my angst, and yours' of course.

By the way - I'm essentially a homeless person. At the time I've started this blog I'm staying at the house of some very nice people in Portland, Oregon - which is by and large a lousy place to be in general. But these folks, being of big heart and soul, have made that statement incredible. "Homeless" meaning I have no permanent address. Sometimes I get to stay indoors in nice homes and apartments, depending on the people I meet, and sometimes I live under bridges, and then again, most of the time I live on a raft on some body of water. Its my belief that a home is nothing more than a box that keeps the weather at bay, where I'm warm and able to cook meals and wash myself. Where I have the privacy to meditate and pray, and to get away from most of the pain of the world outside. Where did I learn to live like this? From personal experience first, but then I got a lot more from the website of The Floating Neutrinos.

The Floating Neutrinos are a family of homeless people who lived on the streets and on rafts they built from scrap. They didn't look like much, but the family sure had a lot of adventures and lived fairly free. Although such freedom does come at a price. I'm somewhat skeptical of the credibility of intentionaly homeless people - such as Poppa Neutrino (the patriarch of the family). Those folks look down on people living in homes and apartments. They think they've found some great "secret" about living free (just unshakle oneself from the ties of paying the landlord) - when in fact they are just failures at just about everything they do. They would argue ad infinitum that that statement is incorrect, but then, of course they think they're right, or they couldn't justify their form of existence. .. The strange thing is, they are the only ones who seem to need to justify how they live. None of the rest of the world gives a damn one way or the other. But the intentionally homeless have built this belief that they are "outside" or "marginal" to society. When in fact they shop at the same stores, see the same doctors, ride the same buses and on the whole, live according to the rules of the community they are in.

The credibility of anyone is questionable. We build reasons why we behave the way we do. We provide ourselves with credibility when either there is none, or frankly, none is necessary. I am a firm believer in looking in the mirror daily, and performing a sobering credibility check. Who the hell do I think I'm fooling?