In the early days of text-messaging, I sent a text to my wife saying, “What about dinner tonight?” At least I thought I did, because we had been texting about our plans for the day. It turned out that I selected the wrong recipient, a young lady I had previously texted about a class-related question. My student graciously caught my mistake and replied with something like, “I don’t think your wife would like that! LOL.” I turned red, apologized, sent the message to the right recipient, and we all had a good laugh.
Fast forward to the present climate. I can easily imagine a headline which reads, “Professor sends inappropriate text to female student.” Speculation about my intentions and my relationship with a “pretty coed” might abound. There might even be an investigation of my previous text messages and emails, which would have revealed nothing, but could cast unfair suspicion on innocent parties. It’s easy to let events get out of proportion, to let the grapevine embellish them, like a game of telephone, where a mistaken dinner “invitation” ends up as a full-blown affair. After all, a simple explanation is not nearly as exciting as what might be found in the world of imagination.
When I was in fifth grade, we moved to our house on Mulberry Street. Mom bought us a book, “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” by Dr. Seuss. Books like this helped introduce me to the world of imagination. They also helped me understand the difference between truth, exaggeration, and falsehood. Marco’s father warned him, “Your eyesight’s much too keen. Stop telling such outlandish tales. Stop turning minnows into whales.” My father also said things like this to his Mark. It’s wonderful to have an imagination, but at the end of the day, we need to tell the truth, as Marco did, even if the truth is as mundane as seeing “Just a broken-down wagon that’s drawn by a horse.”
We all love fanciful stories. Media companies love to sell us titillating and salacious tales. The simple truth often doesn’t stand a chance compared to what many people want to believe – their idols are practically God’s gifts while their opponents are the embodiment of evil. Conspiracy theories, conjectures that embellish what may or may not be there, are often much more appealing than the plain truth. The horse becomes a zebra, then a reindeer, then an elephant, then three. The cart becomes a golden chariot, then a grand wagon carrying a brass band. The simple horse and cart expand into a parade with all sorts of people joining in. Except that it isn’t a parade. It’s only a boy’s imagination.
There’s nothing wrong with having a good imagination. I try to exercise mine daily. My kids even ask what I’m on from time-to-time. But I understand the difference between pretending a thing is true and objective, provable truth. In the end, I would probably answer like Marco. “Did nothing excite you or make your heart beat?” “Nothing,” I said, growing read as a beet, “but a plain horse and wagon on Mulberry Street.”
It’s ironic that so many people have embellished the tale of Dr. Seuss and his early books. He’s not being “cancelled,” only slightly revised. There are many fine Dr. Seuss books still in print and he retains a long legacy of teaching and inspiring children. No one has proposed taking his books out of libraries or that parents no longer buy them. The simple truth is that many books go out-of-print every year, for various reasons. Most have reached the end of their sales curve or are considered too dated. Some contain material the publisher now thinks might not be beneficial. Many authors, like Stephen King, have requested that their early works be taken out-of-print for artistic reasons. “Mulberry Street” was published in 1938. The copyright owners have decided to move on, to become relevant to a new generation of readers. Books like these have not been banned. They are simply no longer being marketed. The Dr. Seuss story is “a plain horse and wagon” that has turned into a parade.
Many people want to have “insider” knowledge, and any embellished story, like a Q-Anon-style conspiracy theory, plays into this desire. To be sure, Marco and I are adept at seeing more than is there in any situation. But at a young age we learned it’s important to tell the truth, even if the truth is plain, and let’s face it, boring. Marco wanted excitement. I do. We all do. But his dad taught him that the truth is more important. A zebra sounds more interesting than an old horse, and a reindeer or an elephant sounds better still. But what sounds true is not necessarily what is true. And it becomes a problem when too many people want to believe a well-told lie rather than accept the fact that it’s “Just a broken-down wagon that’s drawn by a horse.”
MurrayWorks 