Much of life is a matter of perspective. <\/p>\n
I’ve been meaning to reply to some comments made in my journal and made in
\nresponse to comments I’ve made in other peoples’ journals, but I’ve not had
\nthe opportunity to do so. It’s ironic that today I experienced an excellent
\nillustration of a point I wanted to make about truth.<\/p>\n
The postmodern view of life is that there really is no such thing as truth.
\n‘What’s true for me might not be true for you’. In 1984, Orwell does a
\nfantastic job imagining the consequences of such a deconstruction of language
\n(in this case, the word “truth”). <\/p>\n
I believe there is a single such thing as truth. It’s objective, and
\nirrefutable in as much as it can be known. It doesn’t change. It’s both
\nfact, and value (distinguishing it from trivia – factual but not terribly
\nmeaningful). <\/p>\n
The truth is, the sun rose twice today – once in the east, and once in the
\nwest (it hasn’t set yet the second time as I write this). Well, okay, not
\nexactly. But I did, in fact, observe that happening before my very own eyes.
\nThe problem is, my perspective is skewed a bit. I suspect very few of you
\nexperienced two sunrises today. Only a handful of people in the world saw
\nthe sun rise in the west. But does that mean it didn’t happen?<\/p>\n
Even an amateur modern day astronomy student understands, we think, what
\nreally happened – the truth. The sun doesn’t rise at all. That is simply a
\nstatement of our own perspective. Our perspective might not accurately
\nrepresent the truth, though it may be valuable and meaningful to us. I
\nreally did see the sun rise in the west… this afternoon.<\/p>\n
The key to understanding the danger in postmodern thought is assuming that
\nperspective makes truth. It doesn’t. I didn’t make the sun rise in the west
\nand neither did anyone else. My observation was simply a different view of
\nthe very same truth that applies to all of us. The important thing is, I was
\nlooking at the truth. I could have invented a lie – the sun doesn’t exist,
\nor I didn’t see it at all, or the sun really did rise in the west. But
\ninstead, I looked at the truth, though from a different angle than everyone
\nelse.<\/p>\n
No human experience is without perspective. Sometimes our understanding is
\ncloser to reality, and sometimes very far from it. Sometimes we think we
\nhave a very accurate picture, only to discover later that we did not. And
\nwith each learning experience, we have the opportunity to align our views
\nmore closely with the truth. The question is, will we?<\/p>\n
As I watch the sun set for the second time today, I hope I correctly discern
\ntruth from perspective. At least today’s experience made sense to me. And
\nif you know the truth, it’ll make sense to you, too…<\/p>\n
V-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Much of life is a matter of perspective. I’ve been meaning to reply to some comments made in my journal and made in response to comments I’ve made in other peoples’ journals, but I’ve not had the opportunity to do so. It’s ironic that today I experienced an excellent illustration \u2026 Continue reading