Inspired by:
Is it?
Dictionary.com defines it:
(I can sense a disagreement over the example given in 12 above...)
Is truth relative? Is a dog not always an animal? Are trees not always plants?
Well, what about #8?:
8.(often initial capital letter
) ideal or fundamental reality apart from and transcending perceived experience: the basic truths of life.
For some, it's a "fundamental reality" transcending all-or almost all-of our "perceived experience" that little grey men from the Crab Nebula have been coming and taking them away for special testing and breeding programs for all of their lives....for others, the "grey's" experiments have failed, and they all died years ago, while for others there is no such thing as a UFO, let alone aliens. For some of us, it's a "fundamental reality" that they can remember past lives, and bread and wine can be turned into the body and blood of God himself-who was a man-simply because another man waves his hands and says some words (
Hocus pocus, abracadabra!)-and they have faith: they
believe it to be true. For some of us, the tables we sit at and the ground we walk on are quite solid, while for a few of us-physicists-the reality is quite different.
And we have my 68 degree rule: I'm cold, she's hot, the rooms at 68 degrees.I have goose-bumps, she sweats, and there's only one other fact, and that's the temperature.One
fact, two
truths, all equally valid. I mean, if I have goose-bumps, am I not cold? If she is sweating, is she not hot?
And I could say, though I admit I'd be splitting hairs, that butchered puppy in my stewpot after Sundance isn't a dog or an animal any more; it's
meat, just as the boards in my barn aren't trees or plants, they are
wood. One could also hear the collective "eew!" from certain people at the horror of my dining on a cute, ffluffy puppy, and compare their
truth to the
fact that I find puppy to be a damn fine meal, especially after four days without food or water, bound to a tree,dancing and staring at the sun....every time I've had dog, I've had seconds-and that's a
fact.
One could say that for some, the
truth is that my marriage itself is an abomination, against the laws of nature and God-that would be their truth, not mine. While such sentiments are no longer enforcable by law in this country, I'd still say that the law of this country defends their right to believe them to be
the truth.
And, in fact, so would I, even if I (obviously) think it's a bunch of crap. I might even argue about how it's a bunch of crap-sort of like saying the Democratic party is "the party of racism," or "gays are foisting their
lifestyle on the rest of us," or "free market economies are best for a free society," or "we had to go to war in Iraq because Saddam had WMD, used them on his own people, supported al Qaeda and pissed off the little baby Jesus," or other such things that
I believe to be nonsense. Even though I know that I'd have no chance of changing their mind, I'd go ahead and argue with them. In part, I'd do it from some dim hope that they could rise above what I see as their pettiness-let the warmth of
my truth wipe away the goose-bumps of their fear-but I'm 48 years old, and I can count the times that that's actually happened for me on the fingers of one hand-and have pinky and thumb to spare! So, no, I don't do it to change other people's
truths- let them get whatever they get out of it. I do it to put mine out there, because,
for me, it
is the truth.
And, I'll admit, I have an out-sized ego-I enjoy a good argument, and I like the
idea of "proving" that I'm "right." I get to do that a little at work-I also have to swallow a
lot of crap that is just not true-as well as having a limited basis in
fact at best-in my field, I can't begin to tell you how angry and frustrated that can make me.
Well, I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you. :lol:-no, strike the smiley-that isn't a joke. :lol:
So, in the other parts of my life, I put "my" truth out there. Let me have whatever I get out of it-argue they will, but they shouldn't expect me to change my mind, any more than I expect to change theirs....
....especially if I think that
truth they're holding onto, and waving around like a baby who's smeared her crib with her own doing,
is a bunch of crap.
Audio Help /truθ/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[trooth] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation, –noun, plural truths
