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Fact gets the bummest of raps. It gets painted as boring, a killjoy, a wet blanket, a goody-two-shoes. Shut out from the popular circles and the cool parties, Fact gets treated like it only exists to shit in our mailbox and ruin our day.
That’s kinda how the Congress treats it.
How the Creationists, the Anti-vaxxers and the entire state of Florida treat it.
Popular American culture at large has enjoyed kicking Fact to the curb and shoving its face in the gutter while it's down there. After decades of this kind of abuse, Fact might be a little angry, a little sick of being pushed around, of being misused, misquoted, ignored and flat out denied--so Fact would like to take a moment to reintroduce herself:
Fact is independent. She’s no Tinkerbell, she doesn’t need children to clap, she doesn’t even need them to believe. She exists happily with or without us. That's a little scary to think about, isn’t it? She doesn't need us. Doesn't need anyone. She predates us and will most certainly postdate us. You remember that fucking nightmare wolf from Neverending Story? THAT'S WHAT SHE IS. SHE IS WHAT COMES AFTER “THE NOTHING.”
Fiction helps us sleep at night, but Fact is the call coming from inside the house, man. Fact does not fuck around. Fact gets shit done. Fact is the endgame, there is no arguing with her, she’s the original Snopes. By the time Fiction is rolling out of his batmobile bed, littering the floor with loose unicorn pubes and reeking of yesterday’s overcrowded SciFi convention; Fact has already done her yoga, showered, made the coffee, and turned in three scientifically accurate, peer-reviewed papers.
Yet she is the villain? Just because we don’t always like what she has to say?
It wasn’t always like this, you know. She used to be sought after. She used to be WORSHIPED.
When Pythagoras discovered the indisputable evidence of his theorem in 600 BC, he allegedly bolted outside and sacrificed a cow in his front yard. On the spot. In honor of Fact. The religion named for him, Pythagoreanism, praised the beauty of whole numbers; the perfection of measurements that echo each other in golden ratios; the holy pathways of the planets in their periodic orbits; and the ecstasy of musical compositions that stretch and bend their melodies to obey complex harmonic intervals. These men & women reveled in the sheer delicious beauty of the KNOWN, of the PROVABLY TRUE. They quivered, kneeling in obeisance to the all-mighty, the inarguable: Fact.
By no means is Fiction worthless. Though, by its very definition, it can never be REAL. It can never be autonomous. Never exist without our involvement. Fiction will always need an intelligent being to take care of it: to call it into existence, to shape it, to guide it into the world, and perpetuate it. And that sounds great...except when you think about how Fiction literally cannot take a shit without your help. And its not even a real shit.
Fiction dreams; Fact does.
Fiction is invented; Fact has always been, and waits only to be discovered.
Fiction imagines the world; Fact unpacks it in front of our very eyes: she dwarfs us under vaulted mountains, salts our tongues with the sea, pricks our ears up to the whispering forests, she tucks rich, dark soil under our nails and she begs us to explore. To seek her out.
Fact is constant. She can break your heart with beauty and with truth:
The first music you ever heard was your Mother's heartbeat.
We really, truly, are made of atoms born in the cores of ancient stars.
Fact gives. These are gifts from her.
The power and awesomeness of revelation has always existed, and waits for us to discover it.
Look up from your storybooks. Look up from your Netflix, from your Steam account, from your Twitter. Look up at the world around you:
Taste.
Touch.
Test.
Ask.
Find her. She’s here.
That’s kinda how the Congress treats it.
How the Creationists, the Anti-vaxxers and the entire state of Florida treat it.
Popular American culture at large has enjoyed kicking Fact to the curb and shoving its face in the gutter while it's down there. After decades of this kind of abuse, Fact might be a little angry, a little sick of being pushed around, of being misused, misquoted, ignored and flat out denied--so Fact would like to take a moment to reintroduce herself:
Fact is independent. She’s no Tinkerbell, she doesn’t need children to clap, she doesn’t even need them to believe. She exists happily with or without us. That's a little scary to think about, isn’t it? She doesn't need us. Doesn't need anyone. She predates us and will most certainly postdate us. You remember that fucking nightmare wolf from Neverending Story? THAT'S WHAT SHE IS. SHE IS WHAT COMES AFTER “THE NOTHING.”
Fiction helps us sleep at night, but Fact is the call coming from inside the house, man. Fact does not fuck around. Fact gets shit done. Fact is the endgame, there is no arguing with her, she’s the original Snopes. By the time Fiction is rolling out of his batmobile bed, littering the floor with loose unicorn pubes and reeking of yesterday’s overcrowded SciFi convention; Fact has already done her yoga, showered, made the coffee, and turned in three scientifically accurate, peer-reviewed papers.
Yet she is the villain? Just because we don’t always like what she has to say?
It wasn’t always like this, you know. She used to be sought after. She used to be WORSHIPED.
When Pythagoras discovered the indisputable evidence of his theorem in 600 BC, he allegedly bolted outside and sacrificed a cow in his front yard. On the spot. In honor of Fact. The religion named for him, Pythagoreanism, praised the beauty of whole numbers; the perfection of measurements that echo each other in golden ratios; the holy pathways of the planets in their periodic orbits; and the ecstasy of musical compositions that stretch and bend their melodies to obey complex harmonic intervals. These men & women reveled in the sheer delicious beauty of the KNOWN, of the PROVABLY TRUE. They quivered, kneeling in obeisance to the all-mighty, the inarguable: Fact.
By no means is Fiction worthless. Though, by its very definition, it can never be REAL. It can never be autonomous. Never exist without our involvement. Fiction will always need an intelligent being to take care of it: to call it into existence, to shape it, to guide it into the world, and perpetuate it. And that sounds great...except when you think about how Fiction literally cannot take a shit without your help. And its not even a real shit.
Fiction dreams; Fact does.
Fiction is invented; Fact has always been, and waits only to be discovered.
Fiction imagines the world; Fact unpacks it in front of our very eyes: she dwarfs us under vaulted mountains, salts our tongues with the sea, pricks our ears up to the whispering forests, she tucks rich, dark soil under our nails and she begs us to explore. To seek her out.
Fact is constant. She can break your heart with beauty and with truth:
The first music you ever heard was your Mother's heartbeat.
We really, truly, are made of atoms born in the cores of ancient stars.
Fact gives. These are gifts from her.
The power and awesomeness of revelation has always existed, and waits for us to discover it.
Look up from your storybooks. Look up from your Netflix, from your Steam account, from your Twitter. Look up at the world around you:
Taste.
Touch.
Test.
Ask.
Find her. She’s here.
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