Do you believe your eyes?

I read this book once about a world where Earth was too hostile to live outdoors so humans lived in underground silos. Imagine a skyscraper that goes underground and only one story is above ground.

The level you lived on had to do with your educational achievements and what job you did to keep the silo running. More prestigious jobs were closer to the surface. Most of the people went along with this, what other choice did they have?

But one small group of people started to have questions.

The top level was a type of cafeteria that was all windows. You could see the wind swept and toxic landscape from the safety of the silo.

Every so often someone would have to go outside for a safety mission. They would have to suit up in protective gear with their own air supply. Some of them completed their missions, and others ended in tragedy. Their bodies still laying waste in the wasteland.

Okay, here’s the spoiler alert. DO NOT read anymore if you want to enjoy this book someday

Eventually the main character decides she’s ditching this popcorn stand and steals a protective suit and goes outside.

She can see the bodies laying around her and the hostile landscape but in a moment of shear courage (or stupidity) she removes her helmet.

And low and behold, Earth is just as it should be. She finds herself standing in a field of green grass and the sun is shining on her face.

In the distance she can see other silos, just like the one she’s lived in her whole life.

It was all a trick.

What she was seeing out of the cafeteria windows was not reality.

What she was seeing out of the helmet was a video overlay.

She runs over the top of a hill and finds a small group of other humans living as humans should.

So back to the original question.

Do you believe your eyes?

Do you believe your ears?

Do you believe what you are told?

Do you believe what you read, watch or listen to?

Just because someone says it is so, doesn’t mean it is.

Sadly the truth has become much more elusive than that.