**Does a Story Need to Be Real to Be Inspiring?**
In *Interstellar*, there’s a scene where young Murphy Cooper gets into trouble at school for showing her classmates a textbook claiming the Apollo moon landings were real. Her teacher dismisses it, stating:
*"The Apollo missions were a brilliant piece of propaganda that the Soviets bankrupted themselves pouring resources into rockets and other useless machines."*
In the movie’s world, history has been rewritten, and people are left questioning what's real. With the rise of “fake news” and increasingly sophisticated deception, it’s easy to feel torn between truth and falsehood, feeding the polarities that divide us.
But, does it matter if a story is real or not? What is truth anyway? Shouldn’t we focus on how a story inspires us? How it pushes us to strive for something greater, to achieve more than we thought possible?
As a child, my parents woke me in the middle of the night to witness historical moments: the moon landing, Muhammad Ali’s victories, Olympic feats. Whether all of these were authentic or flawless isn’t the point. I felt connection, excitement, and inspiration in those moments.
If we later discover that some of these moments were staged, would we feel betrayed? Perhaps. But I would also remember the love and adventure I felt. The inspiration to become a force for good.
What matters isn’t always whether a story is true, but how it moves us. What we should avoid is going to battle over sides, focusing only on division. Instead, let’s allow stories—real or not—to inspire greatness in us all.
#Inspiration #Truth #Interstellar #Stories #Motivation #Perspective #Connection #MoonLanding #FakeNews
