I was reading a fellow blogger’s post today, and in it he said his purpose was to help you find THE (my caps) answers to certain life questions.   This reminded me of some of my earlier posts on truth where I talk about the concept of truth and that perhaps Jack Nicholson’s character was right when he said “You can’t handle the truth” in the movie “A Few Good Men.”

Isn’t it curious that no-one seems to have found it yet?  The truth I mean.   Of course there are some people who think they have, yet their truth is not accepted by others who either admit they are still searching for THE truth, or are dead certain that they have THE truth.

You would think that THE truth would be easily recognized by any and all sane persons right?  And that’s just it.  Most people do.  Which means that if you don’t see what I see as THE truth you must be crazy, or evil.

I lived this the other night at my favorite watering hole when I was held in a very interesting discussion about the Netherlands with a woman I had just met.  We had both lived there in different places and at slightly different but overlapping times, and even catering for these significant differences, it was still amazing to me how different our truths were about the dutch people and their culture.

Thankfully for my sake at least, I was able to let go of the urges I felt to defend a people and culture I have come to deeply respect, and just be with this woman’s “truth” about these same people.   That in itself was a victory for me because in the past such a conversation would have become a full-blown argument about which truth was THE truth.

Wouldn’t it be great if our general education taught us to engage with the truth as a multi-faceted, evolving story that requires differing and often conflicting perspectives for us to only begin to appreciate; and that any position we take, any understanding we reach is subject to revision or even complete rejection with the passage of time and new perspectives from the people we meet, and the experiences we have.

Wouldn’t that be something?

Perhaps people like my fellow blogger – whom I began this post talking about – would be more helpful by saying that they can help you find YOUR answers, or just answers vs. THE answers.