Everything I Know About Velociraptors

Sadly, entirely everything I know about velociraptors, or rather, everything I think I know about velociraptors, came from Jurassic Park and its subsequent movies.  Their highly intelligent behaviors, their sounds, their eyes, the ways they communicate.  Everything about them is embedded in my brain like it's fact, when in fact, it's actually all in my brain because of movies I've seen since I was thirteen.  Chances are, most everything you know about velociraptors also came from the movies.


It had me thinking, how many things do we think we know are only a matter of fiction?  I'm terrified to learn the answer.  It's like finding out everything you know as real is only part of The Matrix.





Like millions of other movie goers, My Favorite Two and I watched Jurassic World over the weekend.  We enjoyed it.  The velociraptors had a starring role, per usual, and within this last hour, I compared cats to velociraptors then said, "but at least velociraptors are trainable."  And then my brain reminded me again, "everything you think you know about velociraptors isn't necessarily truth."  I have an IQ near 180 (true story), and yet I have to constantly remind myself these facts, these traits of dinosaurs I think I know, are indeed fictitious.



What else have we been tricked into believing?



Let's consider what we know about people.  How much of what we know is from other sources?  Think about celebrities, politicians.  How much of what we think we know about these people is indeed truth?  Family? Friends?  People we barely speak to?  How much of what we know about all of these people is influenced by someone else? By the media?  By popular opinion?



It could be the velociraptors and Jurassic Park all over again.



Sure, stereotypes exist for a reason, but do they exist because of fact or fiction?  Am I just taking analysis too far again? I do that.  Often.  Religion.  Books.  Movies.  People.  All of these things, even velociraptors, have been taught to us so many ways through so many various mediums, that it's hard to sort out what is true and what's not.  And yet, so much of it is in our brains as fact.  I could probably go on about this all night, and I most likely will, but for now, just consider that what we think we know about velociraptors isn't necessarily fact.  And what we know about everything else probably isn't either.  Fortunately, unlike with dinosaurs, the truth does exist, we just have to discover it.














The cake is a lie.  (Only certain geeks will get that reference.)