Facts. Sometimes useful, sometimes limiting, but by definition, always immutable. It is, for instance, a fact that the earth revolves around the sun; it is a fact that the sun is a star, that the earth is not, and that the moon, also not a star, is a satellite of earth. It is a fact that two of my children are in the next room playing together in this moment. It is a fact that this chair under me was once part of a tree or trees, with the exception of its metal feet, likely some nails or screws, and possibly the varnish (although that too may have once been part of a tree).
Those were easy. Teasing out fact from opinion gets complicated when we start examining our minds and emotions. So much interpretation is completely subjective. How do we know what is true?
We all respond to the outside world based on our inside world. No one makes us feel or think anything. Thoughts are not facts. When I experience discomfort, whether within myself or with another, I desire a return to comfort, so I seek a solution to a problem. Already I have made a decision: I decided the discomfort was a problem. What if that, my very premise for starting this investigation, is false?
Here I pause and reflect. What can be objectively identified as true within my perceived conflict? I am mother, wife, daughter, friend, enemy; my days have no shortage of conflicts. When disagreement arises, what is fact, and what is my reaction? From where does my reaction arise? What do I believe about this disagreement, about myself in this moment? Do I need to be right, to win, to prove something, more than I need to be happy, to feel peaceful? Can I even, objectively, discern “right” over “wrong”? We humans love to think we know things, but to know a thing we have to believe our thoughts about it first, and sometimes our thoughts are simply not accurate. A litmus test for truth would be lovely…
To be continued… 🙂
Left Handed in a Right Hand World 