He Tasted Lake Michigan Twice Because He Couldn’t Believe It Wasn’t Salty

What a Polish tourist and Lake Michigan taught me about the gap between knowing and believing

One thing I wrestle with on Medium is how much of my real identity to put out there. Jonatha isn’t my real first name, but it is my real middle name, and also my real, ahem, professional name. And Cz are the first two letters of my real last name.

As you might guess, I have at least a little bit of Polish ancestry in me. I spent a good chunk of this summer visiting some cousins in (not surprisingly) Chicago. One of the reasons I went was because some other relatives by marriage, whom I never met, were having a bit of a family get together with some of their kin who were visiting all the way from Poland.

It was a great time. Fascinating. We did a lot of touristy things. The museums, the aquarium, saw the Cubs lose. Could’ve made some great B roll for a John Hughes film.

I witnessed a very peculiar thing that got me thinking about why we believe, or don’t believe, what we do, even when we are 100% sure beyond any doubt that we are wrong.

Photo by Victor Lozano on Unsplash

We were down at the shore of Lake Michigan. It was a breezy day. You could hear the roar of the waves crashing from a good distance away, and the view of the Lake was water as far as the eye could see.

One man, who is educated and a world traveler, was seeing the Great Lakes for the first time. He had been all over the world, seen much of Europe, a good bit of Asia, the Mediterranean, the North Sea, and elsewhere.

He is plenty educated enough to know that the Great Lakes are the largest freshwater source in the world, and had, like all of us, seen plenty of pictures of the lake.

No surprises there.

When he actually saw the lake for the first time though, all that education and knowledge disappeared like the vanishing mist above the crashing waves of Lake Michigan.

It was there. Then it was gone.

The size and scale of freshwater Lake Michigan had blown his mind. Photos and grade school geography are one thing. But standing on the shore of Lake Michigan is another entirely.

He had never seen a lake that size, not even close. He literally could not believe that it was not salty water. He knew it was freshwater. But he also did not believe it was fresh water.

After a few minutes of awe, he had to scoop up a handful of lake water and taste it to believe it was not salty. Then right before we left, he had to do it a second time because he thought he may have missed the salty taste the first time.

He could not believe what he knew to be true.

That got me thinking. When do we all not believe what we know to be true.

When do I not believe what I know to be true.

If it’s true and no one believes it, is it still true?

Should we change our beliefs based on new experiences?

I think we all would say yes to that.

But do we actually do it? Or do we have to go back and scoop up a handful of water a second time? A third time…

One thing that we all found easy to believe was that the Zeberka at Staropolska is fantastic, and the Kielbasa at Wrigley Field is quite good as well.

Photo by Blake Guidry on Unsplash