It's True Because I Want It to Be

All of us have stories about our family's history.  Sometimes these stories have been handed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years.  I have a couple like that in my family.

These stories are, shall we say, of doubtful provenance.  It's not that they were necessarily made up, although that sometimes happens.  Rather, they get added to and embellished over the years.  Forgotten or never known details get supplied, sometimes without us even realizing it.

When we're young, we swallow these stories whole.  When we get older, though, we start to realize that they may not be correct.  We may still choose to believe them, because we don't have any evidence that they're false, but we don't go around insisting to everyone that they have to be true.  We certainly don't use them to gain advantage for ourselves in our lives and careers.

At least, most of us don't.  Some people, however, go on insisting that because they believe these stories are true, and because they want them to be true, they therefore must be true, and so it's perfectly legitimate to use them in that way.

Warren: "I Won't Deny Who I Am"