We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether
the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems
we’re told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one
of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in
part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part
generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part
by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to
determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our
perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed
down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.
—Michael Crichton

Today would have been his birthday.  Happy Birthday, Mr. Crichton.