Carol A. Hand
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Separating fact from fiction
may be more difficult than it seems
***
***
Can what matters most in life
be discerned when we’re programmed
with false news and empty materialistic dreams?
***
***
Smoke and mirrors can momentarily cloud our vision
Yet what we choose to honor, nonetheless,
is ultimately our decision
***
Voices from the Margins 
True Faith will direct us, dear Carol! Nature will re-make us. Thank you for this deep reflection! 🙂
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Thank you so much for your lovely, thoughtful comments, Maria. ❤
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How is Quennie? How it goes with his new friends?
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Powerful. Illusions and delusions…we must be open and aware. Consciousness creates reality. What we feel, think and believe also has significant impact on just how much these impact us. Thank you, dear Carol. 💕
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Thank you for your thoughtful comments, Carrie, and for sharing important insights about the impact of the lenses we look through to make sense of the world and life.
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I love the way you parallel fake news and false desires.
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Diane, it’s always a pleasure to hear from you. Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Both filtered (fictionalized) news and advertising bring to mind Edward Bernays. Please excuse the following alliteration. Both seem to share a common agenda – molding the minds of the masses to make us more malleable and manageable. Tragically, the methods seem to work for long periods of time…
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And then there’s separating facts from opinions….some seem to confuse the two.
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Thank you for your thought-provoking comments, David. I would agree that clinging to our beliefs and opinions is a choice, too. Yet even facts are slippery. As someone who teaches and writes about research, I realize how difficult it is to define absolute facts. Even what we consider to be factual, rigorous science, is based on socially constructed agreements that aren’t universally shared. Is there one truth or many? Can one ever be purely “objective,” or is the illusion of detachment a value and belief in itself?
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Well said!
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Thank you, Ginger. 🙂
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Your reflections are spot on, Carol. We are all, unfortunately, living in post-truth societies where it is easy to cherry pick information to arrive at calculated conclusions, as readily exemplified by what is purveyed as paid news. It is thus becoming more incumbent on right thinking people everywhere to travel the extra mile to sift fact from fiction and truth from untruth.
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Thank you for sharing your thoughtful comments and wisdom, Raj.
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Sadly tis so very true, my friend. Love and hugs, Natalie 🙂 ❤
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Thank you for your kind and thoughtful comments, Natalie. ❤
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You’re so welcome❣️😘
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I have been visiting these images since you posted them. Usually, after a shower TMI 😉 It seems both images change so dramatically each day…I am wondering if I got a bad batch of tea or something. It must hallucinations or hysteria….I dunno. !#&****
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Thank you so much for your delightful comments, S. You made me laugh. 🙂
I admit these photos are quite odd. I took them while I was waiting to see a tarot card reader/psychic. (That’s another story…) As I waited outside her shop, I was intrigued by the way light was reflected and mirrored from so many surfaces in the windowed skywalk on a sunny fall day. I decided to take some pictures while I waited but could never figure out how to use them until I wrote this poem. (To be honest, I’m surprised that no one else commented about them…)
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“Too be honest” maybe people do not want to look so deeply. I love the photos don’t get wrong, but I get lost in them and they give me a dull headache. I do not think we are wired to see that side of humans. It is friggin scary!
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Again, you have made me laugh in a good way, S. It does make me dizzy if I look at the pictures too closely. It’s hard for me to figure out what is “real” and what is a reflection… 🙂
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Oh good, so I am not the only one that is bat S crazy.
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