The truth is something that has fascinated me for a long time. I search for it in vain yet it is an elusive creature. The truth is a unicorn, a chimera or an amalgam of everyone’s beliefs. It is a figment of our imagination. I have been convinced for some time that there is no such thing, there is just perception and probability.
We use the words truth, reality and fact as if indeed they are the truth, reality and fact when instead they are merely our interpretations of the state in which we find ourselves. My truth is personal and so is yours.
I end up reading books that tell me things I already believe in. I end up watching television programmes that support my own prejudices and political beliefs. I associate with, or rather confide in people who are like minded. I avoid the rest. I shape my own sense of reality and I reinforce my own truth. That is a fact.
This is something that we all do. Each of us has our own model of the world in which we live. It is built up over generations of experience like geological sediments and we add to the canon through our own participation. Reality is built upon reality. Truth is layered upon truth. In the end we believe our own hype.
The problem arises when we deny all other realities, when we fail to accept that others have different points of view and we close our minds to the possibilities of alternate facts. Enlightenment can only come we accept that others have valid ideas, that their truths have a place in the wider understanding of humanity and indeed that their truths may be more appropriate than ours.
Our aim must be not to ensure our truth reigns supreme at the detriment of all others but rather to create a consensus of reality that we can all agree to.
We should celebrate diversity of truth.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 