Pondering 'Truth'

Everything that I write finds its way to the page via a complicated process of reception, filtration and interpretation within my mind.

My senses collect input from the world around me.  The input passes as through a sieve into the complex array of experiences and impressions in my mind.  The sophisticated, yet hidden, sieve filters out data that doesn’t fit and shapes that which does. 

In this way, I make sense of the world.  Every moment of my life is shaped by, and shapes this process, creating meaning out of raw data and building the lens through which I see and define ‘reality’.

This is a highly unique and personal process, affected as much by the spirit I bring to this world as by the experiences I collect as I move my way through this life.  So, even another that encountered the exact same experiences as I would have a unique worldview, all hir own.

This being how the mind functions, I can honestly say that my ‘truths’ represent no one other than me.  And even those truths have a transitory quality as they are shaped by each moment that I live.  Certainly as I look back over the years, I see ‘truths’ once sacred to me as vestiges of the past, reminders of the particular life lessons I was encountering at the time.  Though some remain as elemental parts of this being, even they have been shaped by experience and time.

So, how could I ever have the audacity to say that my ‘truth’ represents any other than myself?

For that to be true, I would have to reside in hir body, experience the moments that are hirs alone, witness the worldview created by the accumulation of moments into a lifetime of experiences, beliefs, expectations, and feelings – all of which created filters for how s/he perceives, and hence, responds to life. 

If I ‘walk in another’s shoes’ for many miles, I can develop empathy and some level of understanding.  But ultimately my perception and interpretation, of the experience, and hence my worldview and sense of ‘truth’, will always be uniquely mine. 

So, how then can I say that my truth is hirs?  Or anyone’s, for that matter, other than my own?

It’s not such a bad thing, really, to only be able to represent oneself.  Certainly, it seems a lifetime to even understand one’s self.  And, if we could find a way to articulate the truths we glean from our unique experiences with life, we would have so much to teach, and learn from, each other!

That is, however, if we can refrain from trying to convince each other that our truth should be hirs, just allow our truth to be our own, and work to understand the other’s truth in our own unique way.

Nature requires ‘requisite variety’ to be resilient and healthy.  So too, humanity, needs variety, lots of it.  And as we learn to share that variety without judgment, we open ourselves to develop to higher levels of consciousness and humanity.

This, of course, is a ‘truth’ which I can only claim to be real for myself – my unique read on the world in this moment.  What is yours?