"To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea."
Henry David Thoreau
I will say almost everyone has an opinion, version or speculation about what led up to, transpired and evolved. Why do we do that? Why is it important to know everything about a tragedy. Is it because we can cope better? Maybe in understanding we can have closure? I am not sure but I am sure of one thing. We never really know the truth.
Even the most truthful person can only tell their version of a situation. Years ago a youth group learning experience led me to have a person burst into the room, run around and leave quickly. I asked the kids to describe the intruder. They all saw the same person at the same time for the same length of time yet I received many varied descriptions. As humans we are given a set of glasses at birth. They are our worldview glasses. These glasses are scratched, smudged and tinted through out time by our life's experiences. As we peer at happenings through these glasses the experiences themselves are shaped in our vision by what has happened to us, more importantly what has shaped how we see things. So truth-telling is shaped by how we see events in our life.
The truth is also shaped by our involvement in a situation. How we are connected to those involved will shape our objectivity. It is hard to see evil intent in someone we love, it is easy to see harmful motives in someone that has a lifetime of poor choices. B
My Mom always said of her failed choices in men, "Hindsight is 20/20" meaning as we set, in a calmer, timely examination of our choices it is easy to plot and plan how the situation may have gone down if we were there; what we would have done, or not done; we can make perfect choices. In that close, methodical dissection of a tragedy, we are able to paint a picture that may be far from the truth because tragedies rarely unfold in in a slow, planned environment. Sometimes things just happen. In the moment. With absolutely no planning.
Now I am married to an amazing man. He is very brilliant. Many would never know because he rarely speaks. (Some might say it is because he never gets the chance but my world view glasses tell me he could just doesn't.) He spoke the other day after listening to his employees hashing, re-hashing and inflating the details of this town tragedy. He spoke and said this,
We will never know the truth.
We wouldn't know the truth even if the one that can't speak could and even if the one that won't speak did.
We will never know the truth but the third story, the one that contains the truth lies somewhere in the middle and it has no voice of its own.
truth is usually silent
No comments:
Post a Comment