The Fact of the Matter Is
Truth is reality. The reality of what occurred when, where, why, and how. In reality, however, truth is the antithesis of what it stands for. In reality, truth is the most complicated, conflicted, and dishonest 5-letter word in the English language.
Consider this: if two people are dating but suddenly break up, each person formerly in the relationship will have different feelings about what transpired and, as a result, conflicting stories of what actually occurred, leading to multiple “truths.” Just because everyone has the same understanding of the meaning of the word “truth” does not mean that everyone has the same perception of reality. Conflicting stories is just the beginning of a long line of impediments, though.
People avoid the truth when it’s in their best interest. People lie about their height, weight, GPA, and test scores, to name a few. Why? To give others a false sense of reality. Or, maybe, to give a personal false reality. At what cost? The truth. The constant struggle between self interest and morals almost always ends up with the former prevailing, and it’s pretty apparent why: the truth — and that means the whole truth — isn’t that important. At the end of the day, people all just make their own.
The truth, however, can exist due to mathematical statistics and scientific records. If a baseball player has a .333 batting average, it’s clear that he averages one hit in every three at bats. Yet, even this statistic that is meticulously tracked can be controversial. There’s a very blurry line when it comes to determining a play that some would consider a hit (which would boost a player’s batting average) and others would consider an error (which would have no effect on a player’s batting average). Often times, a hit is awarded to the batter if he’s playing in his home ballpark because the statistician is being generous and giving him a “home field advantage” of sorts. Subsequently, those who consider the play to be an error would view the hitter’s batting average as an untruthful statistic. Conflict of interest? One can say so.
Even the simplest truths are more complicated, conflicted, and dishonest than realized.