My father always told me, "Believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see." This has always played in the back of mind, on repeat. In today's world it has never rang more true. With so much information, being downloaded and uploaded we can never know the real truth. Everyone has their opinions and trying to figure out the truth is a difficult task. I am a firm believer in fact checking if it does not sound right or logical I am going to do my own research and figure it out. However, there was a time when research and information was extremely limited to me. I am talking about the time COVID hit.
Even though information is in the palm of our hands there are certain circumstances when that is unavailable. No, I am not talking about when you cannot get a signal I am talking about prison. When COVID hit, I was in prison. This is when I really started to dislike the media and all its misinformation. I get it we were all still learning about the disease and no idea the effects of it. What I disliked was the media continuously playing on people's fears. News constantly tell us how many people are dying and images of refridgerated semi trucks with bodies being hauled to the city morgue. That is overwhelming, well, in prison that is the greatest fear of all, knowing you have a release date and unsure if you will ever be able to walk out of those gates again. The prison did nothing to sate those feelings they continued to lie, downplay, and blame us for spreading it to them. We heard rumors of cots being ordered for quarantine and if anyone was infected we would hauled off to some unknown location for us to just die. In highsight dramatic, but with the news being the only source of information and everyday it was saying how people are dying and there is no cure. It frightened a lot of us, including myself. We were constantly locked down because someone tested positive sometimes I felt like I was in The Lord of the Flies. During this time, I just learned to change the channel and quit listening to the radio. The news continued to play on my fear and anxiety and honestly my mental health could not take it. I learned what I could about what was happening out here. As long as my family and friends were safe I was ok. Eventually I did get COVID and it really sucked probably the worse sickness I had ever felt. Losing your sense of taste and smell was the weirdest sensation I have ever felt. I did get shipped to a different unit, but after two weeks I was graciously put back in my area. The fact of the matter is even when there is lack of information you have to learn to just turn the channel.
U like how you mentioned how the content can be right in front of us and it is still not believable without true credibility. It's hard to learn these days what is real and what is not because of the slanted reporting and constant opinions that are displayed in the world today.
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