Paradigm Shifts

An Essay by H.J. Ted Gresham

Give it up! You spend your days and nights with the knowledge and consequently the fear and apprehension and worry that the knowledge brings. You know, inside your heart and soul, that things are happening in the world that are secret, ominous, frightening, mind-boggling even. You try to explain those things to people, people you care about. They think you are a bit off the wall. You try to tell others, putting up websites, participating in chat rooms, sending e-mail. Maybe you meet with a few more like-minded people or maybe you are alone in your world. You learn to be careful what you say around some people and you learn to take the verbal barbs from friends and family spoken to you in good-natured humor but which slice through you like a knife. You feel like a mute person who sees a car about to run into an un-knowing child. You can’t scream, they don’t see you and won’t look up, you can’t stop the car. It’s a very difficult way to live.

Even your own thoughts battle against the things you know. “If people, so many people, say I’m crazy, I must be.” You examine the evidence again, review it, reject it and then come right back to it. The truth is as plain as the nose on your face. At least to you. But nobody, not anybody, will listen. Good lord in Heaven you say to yourself what will it take? WHAT WILL IT TAKE!

The answer to that question is simple. There is nothing that will open their eyes. There is nothing that will get their attention. There is nothing whatsoever you can do to convince the unconvinced and those who refuse to be convinced. What you, and I, must realize is that we are different. Who knows why? You can say God made us that way if you are inclined to believe in God. You can say it’s just biology, some strange “freak of nature” or something. But the fact is, we are different. We were born with the ability to see “outside the box” to use a very worn phrase. We don’t see the world as others do and we don’t understand why they don’t see the world as we do. How can this be? Why? Why are we blessed—or cursed—with this? It makes me angry. Does it you?

You and I begin with ideas about how things should be and we have faith and we have all those thoughts and feelings inside us that others have to begin with. What makes us different is that we are malleable. We have the true scientific mind, whether we are scientists or cab drivers or clerks at the Seven-Eleven. We have curiosity, and the ability to adjust to and accept new information. It doesn’t matter our education, either. It has nothing to do with education, it has to do with mental abilities, and attitude, and probably a few things that I don’t know about and probably could never be identified. Why are the colors of the rainbow arranged the way they are? And why do we think they are beautiful. Some things just ARE and so we have to accept them. So we are malleable, adaptable, flexible. That doesn’t mean we have no solid foundation, though some of us might not. It doesn’t mean we “blow with the wind.” Just the opposite is true. We refuse to go with the “wind,” the wind of opinion, the winds of ideas, the winds of change.

Few things are more frustrating than our not being understood in this regard. “Oh, you are just nuts, listening to some quack on the radio or reading some junk, you’d believe anything.” How so very untrue! Why, we say, do they not notice that we do not follow the latest trends, we do stand out, we buck the flow of society, because we see things differently and because we refuse to be pulled along with the crowd. It’s the exact opposite of what “they” are saying, that we’ve been “sucked in” to something. What has happened is we heard about something we were interest in and said, “yeah, right, and the moon is cheese.” But then we read about it and heard the evidence and looked around us and concluded, “well, duh, I was wrong. They ARE right. But the moon is still not cheese.”

The most bizarre and frustrating part of all of this is that what “they” think IS the opposite of the way things are. “They” think that “they” are open minded, free thinkers, able to evaluate—and discard—information in a rational way. But what they are doing is starting with a pre-conception and using some set of personal dictums, aphorisms, laws, as their measure. Usually they are not even aware of this themselves but sometimes they are. You see something that to you is clear as a summer sky in Arizona and in their minds it forms clouds and rain and fog because what you show them contradicts what they “know” is truth and fact. To speak scientifically, you begin with a theory, an hypothesis, that can be adjusted as things progress. “They” begin with what they “know” to be “facts.” You adjust your “hypothesis” as you receive new information. “They,” on the other hand, measure the information up against the “facts” in their head and if it doesn’t measure up, it cannot be true to them.

Where do we go from here? Where we should not go is where we WANT to go, and where we HAVE been going. Which is? I’ll tell you. As much as it turns our insides over, we must not try to convince the inconvincible. “Spreading the word” is not going to work. Shouting from the rooftops is not going to work. Lobbying Congress, writing your senator, these things will not work. Why? Because the majority of people simply will not accept what you say, the evidence you present, no matter what! As much as we want them to, they re not going to believe us. Some day, maybe, they will be changed, but by then our efforts will have been useless because by then the aliens WILL have landed on the Whitehouse lawn. And we will have exhausted ourselves for nothing and will end up with only the empty satisfaction of being able to say “I told you so.” When the sky has already fallen it’s too late. We have to stop trying to convince people who will not believe us that the sky is falling and instead see what we can actually do about that falling sky.

One thing many people who are like you and I, who see the truth in things that others refuse to believe, do not understand is that if, by chance, through constant speaking and showing and telling and hounding and whatever we do get through to one of “them,” we do them a great disservice at least and will destroy them at most. “They” live their lives within the boundaries set by their own personal “truth” and if we destroy those boundaries we throw them into confusion, into fear, we tear the fabric of their lives apart. THAT is why people get angry at us for no apparent reason. We are threatening their very existence. It’s no small thing when a person looses his or her foundations and beliefs. That may have happened to you to bring you to where you are now. If it did, was it fun? No, I think not. It is very painful and destructive and who are we to bring that kind of trauma into someone’s life?

As much as we want “them” on our side, as much as we want “them” to understand, it isn’t going to happen. And it is not fair for us to try to shove it down their throats because if we DO bring them around to see things as we do the probable result will be that it will destroy the relationship that existed before. They may hate us, will certainly resent us, and could actually do things that are self-destructive. We have to simply accept the chasm that exists between us and “them” and realize that they have to begin moving toward us before we can reach out to them. We only tell them some of the things we know, we accept their disbelief and jokes and, sometimes, ridicule. We grit our teeth when the “scientific community” and the government rejects what is so obvious to us. And we continue to care about “them” and be the friend and family member we always have been.

“BUT,” you cry, “If I don’t do SOMETHING I will go nuts!” This is true. And believe me, I know the feeling. Here is what I think we should do. First, we keep on learning, studying, exploring, finding out things until we are as clear as we can be ourselves. We continue to collect evidence and facts. We wait, however long we have to wait, for the doors to swing open a little and then we slip a few things through and in the mean time we slip a note or two under the proverbial door. And we seek out others like us, make friends, work together and share information, talk about our feelings (not macho but an important part of coping) and learn to live within two communities, the one that includes us and them and the one that includes only us.

It is extremely important when the time comes that we can show what we have, we can put our cards on the table, that we have the full deck. So we must be sure of things ourselves. We have to be able to accept and reject information ourselves and not fall into the same trap “they” have, by accepting everything we hear as they seem to reject everything. You and I see the truth and we are angry, unhappy, freaking, that other folks don’t. We have to be sure of that truth, though. We have to be able to evaluate the information we receive and reject things that are highly unlikely. Otherwise when the door does open a little we will be found out to be not seekers of truth but fanatics and cooks and the door will slam closed maybe for good.

Our efforts to separate fact from fiction must be very diligent. You and I must have four “piles” into which we place every piece of information, every shred of evidence, every testimony. Those four “piles” must be called Truth with verification, Possible Truth without verification, Unlikely to be true without verification, and bunk. Never, under ANY circumstances, should we ever show any of “them” any of our piles other than the smallest, “Truth with verification.” In our conversations with people who think we’re nuts or only mildly neurotic we can talk about lots of things flippantly but we should never, ever, present what we THINK is true as true because to do so could explode in our face. Show a skeptic a wall and say “that wall is a wall because it is tall, wide, and painted red.” The skeptic will look closely at the wall and if he finds a small corner of the wall painted blue he will say, “Ah ha, no, it’s not a wall, you lied. See, there’s a blue spot on it. No wall. End of story.” I know that sounds crazy but that’s the way things work in their head. They don’t WANT to believe you because of what it will do to them inside. So they look very hard for a reason NOT to believe you. When you are not clear about any small point they are able to dismiss everything on the basis that you lied about that small point.

Until that person you so want to listen to you and understand makes the first move, you must be careful not to burn any bridges or build any walls. Don’t try to convince them, they will not listen. Don’t try to bully or overwhelm them, they’ll just become angry. And don’t shove what you think is “overwhelming evidence” in their face because they will, again, not believe it and most likely will resent you for it. What you CAN do is slip a few nuggets under the door. “Say, did you see that little article in the paper today?” If they come to understand things as you do it will take time and patience and waiting and all you can do is drop subtle hints. When they do take that first step, again, you must be extremely careful. “Sure,” they say, “I saw that piece on UFO’s. Strange. So?” That’s an open door, a tiny crack, though, so don’t try to force it open. Don’t drop a dozen books on them and start quoting Whitley Strieber and signing them up to go with you to your next MUFON meeting. Instead, expand on the information in the paper article, slip in a little extra, and see what happens. And always understand the fear and trepidation they must overcome to listen to you with any semblance of an open mind.

You and I already live in a split world. Or two worlds. We live in the “real” world, knowing what is “really” happening and what is “really” going on. And we live in that greater world which is part reality and part fantasy, part truth and part fabrication, part normal and part covert and very abnormal. And we want so bad to pull those worlds together and make them one because it is so hard to deal with both of those worlds. It would be much easier to live in one or the other. But we cannot “go back” to that world we used to live in because we know things now. It would not be the same even if we tried to reject what we know. Some do that and their lives are usually miserable. “If I only didn’t know what I know,” you say to yourself sometimes. But you do. And you can’t live on the other side alone, either. So you split yourself and try with all your might to pull the two together. Stop it. It can’t be done. Maybe some day they will move together and we, you and I, will be ecstatically happy. But don’t hold your breath. And don’t let yourself become a hermit or outcast. It’s not worth it. We need those people, those family members and friends. Don’t be distant, condescending, impatient, or any of those things we can be to “them” if we let ourselves. Just be friends and care about them in spite of their “ignorance.”

The last two things we must do, you and I, are very important and the primary purpose of this little diatribe. We must seek each other out and form bonds of friendship, respect, and understanding. And we must do what WE can do, without the majority of society’s help, understanding, support, and even with their opposition. Otherwise we will simply be “clanging brass and tinkling symbols” to borrow a phrase from the Bible. We’ll only be noise with no substance and this understanding we have will have been wasted. Without any substantiation and not trying to sound metaphysical, prophetical or anything of the kind I must still say that I think some of us are born with this “difference” for some kind of purpose. Somebody has to be a shepherd. Maybe it is us.

While I’m not exactly talking about becoming part of some sort of “secret society” I do advocate that we push past our differences and become friends and associates and together be somewhat circumspect about who we bring into our association or group. Trust is a commodity that is very rare and valuable and should not be handed out wholesale. If Truth is dispensed in a careless fashion then sooner or later, most likely sooner, it will be misplaced and will come back to haunt us. Having said that, it makes perfect sense for you and I to become friends because we have in common that we live a somewhat schizophrenic life, that we see things as they are and not as we want them to be, that we seek truth even if it frightens and terrifies us, and that we want to DO something about it. There is strength in numbers and we can do more working together than any of us can do alone.

Finally, we have to change directions. We have to quit trying to get everyone on board, quit trying to convince a world that will not listen, quit seeking help or information or support from a government that will not respond. That does not mean we run and hide. It does not mean we pull the talk shows and stop writing our congressman or any of that. What it does mean is that those should be only a small part of what we do and not our focus. If the person we most care about says, “you are full of it,” then we say, “ok, fine. Whatever.” And we still publish our truth and show our evidence to the world. And we still work to get to the bottom of things. But we have to do more if we are to be more than “tinking and crashing” noise. And that will take us working together out of sight of everyone else.

There can’t be UFO’s. There can’t be abductions. The government can’t be involved in secret projects. But there is, there are and they are. We know that. Inside our heart and mind, we know it and it makes us a bit crazy because it scares the hell out of us and leaves us feeling helpless, vulnerable and weak. But we are only as helpless, vulnerable and weak as we allow ourselves to be. Even the Big Brother of Orwell’s fantasy had limits. I do not believe there is nothing we can do. I believe there is a great deal we can do. But it will take, first of all, building relationships, and second, the courage to do it.

At this point I don’t know WHAT we should do. I have no idea. No clue. Often what I want to do is scream into a pillow, to shake those I care about and scream, “WAKE UP!” Then when I think about how useless those things are I want to run and hide, build a fortress, wall myself in, save my own ass and let the rest of the ignorant world go to hell. But then I don’t want to do that either. I do care about them. And I want to believe in a tomorrow, a good tomorrow. But that is so very difficult to do at this moment. Isn’t it?

Join me. Make that paradigm shift within yourself, resolve to do more than run here and there and obsess about these things and not really do anything about it. Go ahead and play your fantasy games and have fun with your Trek badges and Spok ears and Sword and Sorcerer adventures but don’t LIVE there. Instead, lets, you and I, start to live in this real world and see what’s what. Let’s do something to make this world and universe better in spite of, and because of, those people out there who we care about and who don’t have a clue, won’t be there to support us and will never thank us. What does that matter? What matters is that we DID do something, we at least tried to make the world a better place. In my own mind and heart I believe that it is not the collective efforts of worshipers who touch the heart of God. I believe it is the fact that so many individuals have chosen to worship. It is not that we are all of one voice and tone that makes our shout heard but that we are many individual tones in different keys and of different tempo’s that causes the sound to rise. We can be a ring on the finger of impotence and inaction or we can link up to be the chain that pulls those two disparate worlds in which we live together. OK, enough of the platitudes. Let’s get to work. Shall we?

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