Struggling with the Truth
Personal Thoughts
I was grappling with this fresh thought for some time now — What is truth? (You bought the deal when I said fresh thought, didn’t you? 😆) Anyway! So, is truth reality? Or is truth just facts? When we say a person is speaking the truth, is it because she is narrating facts? Or because she is talking about what really happened? And isn’t what really happened a narration of facts? Turns out these are not new questions (btw, do you sometimes wonder if any of your thoughts are really original? As in, you have a thought that has perhaps never been thought of before?).
But, like I said, these are not new questions. Reality and truth have been discussed and written about quite a lot. You must, however, read this LinkedIn post about Truth vs Reality which outlines ten differences between the two. I do not wish to endorse or diss anything the writer of this post has written but my personal favorite is the tenth difference which says — “Truth is always real, Reality is not always true”. I do not understand this statement at all (or the mini-explanation the writer provides in their post) but, this instantly reminded me of the differences I manufactured to get additional marks in school. Q: What is the difference between squares and rectangles? (2 marks) Now, you know the obvious difference — squares have all sides of equal length whereas rectangles have opposite sides of equal length. But is this good enough for two marks? Maybe not! So, you need another point of difference to make a stronger case. And thus came the classic statement for all difference questions — All squares are rectangles but all rectangles are not squares. Ting! Two marks scored! And that is exactly how the Truth vs Reality statement in the post sounded to me!
But let’s come back to where we were. Actually, I don’t want to delve deeper into the philosophy of reality and truth. I want to stay with the truth alone. And I want to bring falsity into this now. The two sides of the same coin — truth and false — the way they say it. I don’t believe that anymore though. That these are two sides of the same coin. I don’t think it’s a coin anymore. It’s the world of Bitcoin now and Bitcoin, which sounds like a usual currency coin, is just currency, not a physical coin. And it has no sides. It exists, but in a virtual world. You can’t extract it for it does not really exist for physical extraction. You can see it (numerically). Use it. But cannot feel it physically (you can, however, feel it in your heart by buying some Bitcoin and seeing the market crash 😇). But it’s intangible, right? And that’s how truth is these days. Intangible. It does not exist anymore in the way physical coins do — commanding acknowledgement of their existence.
Truth has become personal now. I have my own truth. You can have yours. We both care about our truths and shall not let anyone harm it. We will protect it, come what may! But the question is how do we have our personal truths? Isn’t truth supposed to be a singular entity — independent of time, situation, people, context — the truly independent singular entity? Isn’t truth supposed to be that? Well, I do not know for sure. In fact, it’s become really easy to have your own truth — a simple exercise really. On the scale of time, which is a series of events, you can pick the events you like and care about, and weave them into your truth with words, art, emotions. Once this manufactured truth is created with real events, it becomes extremely difficult to understand for anyone that it’s not the real truth. That there are pieces missing in time in this industrial truth. And because most people cannot tell that difference, you can also sell your version of truth to folks who do not have their own versions. And that’s surprisingly easy too. Connect with them — your buyers — with your words, art, emotions. And now, your truth which is based on real events, their orderliness notwithstanding, is not only difficult to be questioned but also has more buyers. Everything just falls into place! This reminds me of one of my favorite movie dialogues of all time — from ‘Detective Byomkesh Bakshy’. The dialogue goes — Sach ke aas paas ka jhooth pakadna mushkil hota hai. Translates to — ‘It’s difficult to catch a false statement that borders on the truth’.
Now, if multiple truths exist, can they exist peacefully forever? Will my version of truth ever clash with someone else’s? Can we co-exist with our versions of truth? It’s a huge question for the future but one that does not invoke much hope. And that is because separate versions of truth is the basis of legal system in this world. Two or more groups with their versions of truth clash with each other. Courts and law listen both sides and judge them on the yardstick of actual truth, the singular truth, or what the courts think is the singular truth. Such an event is supposed to be rare but if all of us have our own versions, God bless us all!
So, perhaps we should wonder sometimes if our versions of truth are the only ones of worth and if no other versions matter? And if you think yes they are, then care for them well. But keep an eye out! Your manufactured truths, like the virtual currencies, can make you rich or land you in a market crash. And I hope yours do not land you in the latter.