Truth…
The other day, I had posted an article about something on Facebook. It’s not important what it was, as it could have been anything. One of the people on my friends list commented on it and absolutely wouldn’t believe what the article had to say, even though it came from a direct source. He insisted that it had to be the way he believed it to be, and he wouldn’t hear anything to the contrary.
Now, I believe in truth, and that there is only one truth with regard to anything. You can have multiple truths relating to various aspects of something, but for every aspect of everything in the universe, there is but one single truth. Let me give you an example.
Myself and a subject are sitting facing each other, but separated by a partition in the middle. In front of me, I have two apples. I tell him I have two apples in front of me, and he refuses to believe it because he’s convinced in his own mind that there are actually two pears in front of me, and I can’t convince him otherwise, because he so desperately wants to believe they’re pears.
So what just happened? The one, single, unalterable truth is that there are two apples on the table in front of me. What he wants to believe is the truth, isn’t. Here is what I told my friend who insisted that his view of things had to be correct:
“What the truth actually is and what you want it to be are often two different things.”
Truth is truth because it is exactly that. You can want desperately for there to be two pears in front of me, even to the point of becoming obsessed with that desire, but it will never make it true. You can convince yourself that it’s true to make you feel content in your beliefs, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are still two apples sitting on that table.
Now there are two kinds of truths. The first are absolute truths, which I’ve just discussed. The second is personal truth, otherwise known as honesty. If you ask anyone who knows me, they’ll likely tell you that I’m one of the most honest and open people you’d ever want to meet. Why? Because I did the lying thing when I was a teenager, and I soon came to realize that lying is no way to go through life. If you’re at fault regarding something, admit to it and do your best to make it right. Not only will you earn the respect of others, but you’ll be able to respect yourself as well. Lying about it doesn’t make it go away, it just makes it worse when your lie is discovered.
Back to my initial point, there is but one truth to everything. Some people might like to say there’s a gray area here and there, but that isn’t a reflection of actual truth or lack thereof. That gray area is actually the wavering of their own decision making processes based on the various factors they perceive in whatever issue is being considered.
For example, issue 1 has ten truths about it. Five of those truths are good and beneficial, while five are highly detrimental, and those truths affect each other in various ways. The person looking at it has to decide how they feel about the issue based upon how those truths interact. If some of the truths create unknown effects in the others, the person considering the issue has to contemplate what the final effects will be. If there are unknown factors, or a lack of comprehension of the actual truths of the matter, that’s what creates the gray area in their consideration, but the absolute truths remain absolute nonetheless. People who try to claim, regarding anything, that an absolute truth doesn’t exist because there are gray areas, doesn’t really understand the difference between an absolute truth and a lack of comprehension or reasoning with regards to those truths. This is common amongst humanity as a whole. You will find however that the type of people who do look for the absolute truths in things, will be far more rational, basing their decisions on logic rather than emotion, while those who live their life in the “gray areas” will tend to be more emotional and make less rational decisions.
Anyway, that’s enough about that for now. When I think of something else I want to talk about, this will be the place.
(Current Mood: bored
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