Boron - Chapter 05

Here's a true story. Once upon a time a beer company did a survey to find out which of their products customers preferred and you know what? To their astonishment they found that 80% or so of the people they surveyed preferred their premium beer as opposed to their regular beer.

Why were they astonished? The answer is easy. You see, their sales figures were showing that most people bought their regular beer and NOT the premium.

What's going on here? Well, for one thing, it is very common. You see, the surveyed people were trying to give the "right" answer and so they put down as an answer the beer they felt they SHOULD DRINK.

It happens all the time. But pity any poor fool who decides to go into the brewery business based on this kind of erroneous marketing information.

Here's another example of how people struggle to give the "right" answer. How many people do you know who read the "National Enquirer"? Not many huh? Almost everybody I talk with really puts down the "Enquirer". (Even here in Boron) But guess what? The "National Enquirer" is the largest selling newspaper in the world - BY FAR!

Yet nobody reads it. At least not here on earth. It must be all those Martians.

What do people read? I'll bet if you took a survey you would discover that the most read book of all is the Bible.

It's just not true. Hardly anyone (percentage wise) has actually read the Bible. A lot of people own a Bible, a lot of people DISPLAY their Bibles, some people are given to swearing on a Bible but damn-few people have actually READ the Bible.

And who can blame them? The Bible is repetitive, hard-to-read and most of it is deadly boring.

Yet people feel guilty and, in their attempt to give the RIGHT answer, they will say (and often convince themselves) that the Bible is their favorite reading material.