Dissing Amber Heard again cos it's fun and I loathe her for the damage she's wrought on *real* victims / survivors

DISCLAIMER: everyone has been doing the dog/bee thing so no claims any of the following is an original thought

Note: This is for the lols

For anyone who missed the memo and this sounds entirely too ludicrous to be true...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7TX_W1nC6s

[Time stamp 0:48-0:50 Amber says UNDER OATH that her dog stepped on a bee and pulls a stupid face. For the record the owner of the 'trashed' trailer testified the 'damages' consisted of one (1) broken light fitting valued at $62]

"My dog stepped on a bee"

and got bit by a flea

Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea

Johnny Depp hit me

but I didn't flee

my nose was broken but I didn't take a selfie

got r*ped with a bottle but didn't go to A&E

or a GP 

I sh*t on the bed but didn't wee

I'm the princess and the pea

gave me a bruise on the knee

but no you can't see...

He lost one but I lost three

sux no one believes me

I rate the jury D

why am I even free?

A great vegan scrambled egg alternative is ackee

For anyone who missed the memo and this sounds entirely too ludicrous to be true...

https://twitter.com/todayshow/status/1536677940213297155

[Amber Heard claims in an interview that Johnny Depp 'convinced the world' he was, like, ACTUALLY Edward Scissorhands (1990)?! He's a great actor but that is seriously pushing it...]

"Says ... the lawyer ... for the man who convinced the world he had scissors for fingers?"

...the man who convinced the world he was eaten by a bed (Nightmare on Elm Street, 1984)

Given this was his FIRST ROLE I want an explanation as to how he was alive enough the rest of his career?

...the man who convinced the world the film-maker Ed Wood (1994; 1824-1978), policeman Frederick Abberline (From Hell, 2001; 1843-1929), author J. M. Barrie (Finding Neverland, 2004; 1860-1937), John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (The Libertine, 2004; 1647-1680), gangsters John Dillinger (Public Enemies, 2009; 1903-1934) and Whitey Bulger (Black Mass, 2015; 1929-2018) and POTUS Donald Trump (Donald Trump's The Art Of The Teal: The Movie, 2016; b. 1946) ARE ALL THE SAME PERSON

I'm sure I've left out other biographical characters but this lil list would make him (a) 375 years old and counting (b) at least 4 different people simultaneously in the 1920s.

...the man who convinced the world he runs a candy factory full of slaves (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 2005)

the man who convinced the world he was a throat-slitting barber (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 2007)

OMG is THAT why she gifted him the engraved knife???

...the man who convinced the world he was a CGI chameleon (Rango, 2011)

...the man who convinced the world he was a vampire (Dark Shadows, 2012)

...the man who convinced the world he was a wizard (Fantastic Beasts, 2016 & 2018)

...the man who convinced the world he was a pirate (POTC, 2003-2017)

Actually, scrub that one. He IS Captain Jack Sparrow.

On Truth and Perception...and Alien Abductions

Just found this in my drafts...no idea why it wasn't published when I wrote it nearly a year ago. 
PLEASE BE CAREFUL - TRIGGER WARNINGS: Abduction, sexual abuse, sexual violence, rape etc.

INTRODUCTION
Recently* I had a big set-to on Twitter because I have issues with transexuality being self-declared. For me it is a matter of the philosophy of identity which is a subject most perplexing. The individual is seen as the epicentre of identity BUT is the individual best placed to determine their own identity when by its very nature identity is how we are seen by others? 

To clarify for anyone not following me on Twitter I have zero problem with transexuality itself. Regularly I see online that self-awareness of depression or eating disorders is not enough, you must be formally diagnosed. This is not to liken transexuality with mental disorders - just a comparison to other situations where a self-identification is regularly denied despite being fairly straightforward matters of self-awareness. Whether we think of the fictional Adrian Mole and his false self-identification as an intellectual or the real-world Rachel Dolezal who faked being black because that is the ethnicity she identifies with - there are a host of reasons why individual perception is not a great way to define ANYTHING, much less an aspect of the self where the ego can warp perception enormously. Lets face it, Muhammad Ali's assertion that he was "the greatest" is itself immensely egotistical...but validated by popular consensus. Similarly Agatha Christie couldn't bring herself to self-identify as an author despite her demonstrable successes.

I mention this as a precursor to today's musings on truth and perception as they revolve around the idea that things are not always as we see, feel or otherwise experience them.

For example, I identify as an empath (chiefly in science fiction a person with the paranormal ability to perceive the mental or emotional state of another individual - see the Doctor Who episode "Hide") so I live by my intuition a fair bit. I don't expect anyone to acknowledge or believe my gut reactions on any subject, it is purely a matter of my self-perception.

I mention THAT as today's musings begin though with, what to me was, an empathic experience. That I was being told a series of highly dubious tales does not make my impression of the teller as untruthful an empathic experience, just as my 'feeling' on the subject could be easily attributed to paralinguistic attributes (intonation, facial expression etc) but - to my way of thinking - the identification of the root cause of untruthfulness IS a matter of empathic experience.

ON TRUTHFULNESS AND PERCEPTION
When we think of a person being untruthful we come up with synonyms such as 'lying' and 'deceptive' but these only address one form of untruthfulness and there are several.

• Lying - deliberate deceit for gain, attention, amusement (either for the act of telling stories or at the gullibility of of others) etc Perception is deceptive and / or defensive 
• Confusion - honest yet mistaken: repeating a story as heard as if true without verification, misremembering, etc Perception can be confused or truthful, not defensive
• Conviction - the self belief that the stories are true such as with conditions preventing a person from distinguishing fact from fiction, delusions, false memory syndrome (being a step up from a simple act of misremembering) and so forth Perception is truthful and / or defensive *

* Defensive perceptions can also be present in truth-tellers who, for whatever reasons, fear or expect to be disbelieved making truth and conviction difficult to distinguish at a perceptive level.

From my perception of myself as an empath I looked at my perceptions of the person who was telling the improbable-to-the-point-of-impossible tales to try to deduce what form of untruthfulness was at play. The stories in question should have fitted into the first category with the deliberate intent of gaining sympathy yet I was struck curiously by sensing no deceit in them. There were certainly elements whereby confusion could be the culprit - especially when it came to misidentifying medical conditions yet that did not fit particularly well to the whole. The third category I also ruled out. I got no sense that this person believed what they were saying.

For me this indicates a fourth category of untruthfulness: the moral lack of distinction between fact and fiction. Sometimes termed a 'compulsive liar' or 'fantasist' (both of which indicate deliberate acts) I feel this is a separate category as, rather than deliberate acts of deception, the concept of deception itself is actually lacking; a form of amorality. Perception is neutral - because truth is irrelevant.

I have encountered such people before but they are, thankfully, rare. In this case the stories were implausible and raised my suspicions but obviously untruths can be highly plausible too.

This led me to thinking...truth itself is a perception. If you believe that something is so it is so, to you. And this leads me to my...

ALIEN ABDUCTION THEORY

At this point I want to stress that if you have had an experience of alien abduction 

I do not recommend you read on; similarly, if you know someone who has 

please do NOT challenge them with my theory. You could do a lot of harm.

I dare say most people are familiar with stories of alien abductions but have you ever contemplated WHY it's a story that is repeated to a very familiar pattern? Unless you happen to ascribe to the idea that aliens ARE abducting humans you probably put it down to mass hysteria or suggestibility from science fiction sources.

Once upon a time I met someone who had experienced alien abduction and I was curious as to what my empathic tendencies would reveal about their story...and what hit me most was the genuine trauma they were experiencing. In terms of untruthfulness this would sit firmly in the the conviction category - they believed it, they felt it, the perceptions I had of them were honest and accurate to their claim.

So what was going on? Admittedly this happened at a time when The X-Files was very popular - so a lucid dream perhaps or the influence of drugs? Plausible but I wasn't convinced, the trauma was just too real. The fact that accounts of alien abduction are SO similar led me to a different conclusion.

What do these accounts have in common?

• Paralysis (almost always not restrained, yet unable to move)
• Partially conscious
• Probing (physical violation)

Do any solutions present themselves to your mind? 

My theory is that the phenomenon of alien abduction, aided by popular media, is the mind's way of coping with a genuine trauma - specifically rape, especially when drugs like rohypnol are involved. Hence the comments in red above - if the mind is protecting itself it's probably best left that way. If a person would rather believe their experience was alien abduction then that's fine.

This brings me back to the concept of self-identity - I don't want to CHALLENGE anyone's perception of themselves in any way cos how you see yourself is pretty much irrelevant. What is an issue to me is validating someone's opinion of themselves...if someone feels they have been abducted by aliens I will not challenge that, especially not with my theory, but nor do I need to validate their experience and declare that alien abduction is real. Truth is in your perception of it. It's never nice to be called a liar or to be told "you don't really think / feel / believe that" but why do people put so much value in external validation?