Simple question, but not always simple to answer, is it?
How convenient it would be to associate truth with what we know. My truth, your truth, our truths are, after all, nothing more than a mix of our beliefs, perspectives, opinions, and experiences. But the truth doesn’t depend on whether we trust it or not.
There’s some truth. There’s half the truth. There’s the whole truth. There are truths we resist, and truths we want to amplify. And sometimes, the journey to truth isn’t about finding a clear answer right away. Sometimes, it's about learning to sit with life’s tough questions on the way to uncovering answers.
But truth isn’t a lie repeated many times. Truth is, simply, fact—it’s what actually happens, regardless of how the story is told.
Just like an elephant is still an elephant, even if we call it a rhino. When we zoom in too closely, we might only see the skin of some animal. And when we zoom out far enough, it might appear as a dot on a vast landscape. Although the colors of the skin may seem similar and the dots might look the same, it doesn’t change the truth: an elephant is an elephant, not a rhino.
When we think we stand close enough to touch the elephant, each of us might describe it differently—some by its legs, some by its tusks. We argue, convinced the other must be wrong, forgetting that our perspectives are limited by the angle we’re seeing from. Yet all these parts, legs and tusks alike, are truths. But the elephant is much more than just its legs and its tusks—the whole truth is the elephant itself.
As human beings, we are born explorers. We’re meant to seek truth, to honor it, and to share it with others to expand our collective awareness.
Move around.
Zoom in.
Zoom out.
Shift perspectives to find deeper truths beyond what’s limited by our own viewpoint. If we truly want to understand the elephant, we must not only rely on what we see or what those standing beside us describe—we must also listen to others, including those on the opposite side. Our ears help us understand what we can’t see with our own eyes.
Perhaps we all have something to learn from one another.
Perhaps we can all grow by coming together.
🤍
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