True Stories

TRUE STORIES

The one thing I've come to know for sure is that for every subject matter out in the world, be it politics, cinema, cuisine or how to best paint a house:

We all have our own perspective and we all believe that we are right. 

Since we are all the hero of our own stories, it is therefore impossible for anyone to be wrong. I say this without snark or bite, but as a person who believes this to be absolutely true. If I am the true lead in the movie of my life, how could it ever be that I were the antagonist or villain? How could I ever be a supporting player in my own story? The truth is, to someone else I am one or all of these things. But both can't be right, can they? 

Yet this is something we experience every day in every person that we meet, no matter the scale or setting. The scope of the story ranges from the exchange we have in a coffee shop getting our morning latte to an epic argument with your loved one in the kitchen on an idle Tuesday that can change your life in an instant. 

Everyone is right, and everyone is wrong. It's a clash of furious energy and harmony that becomes so entangled it's nearly impossible to discern sometimes which truth applies to which person. Heroes don't always look like heroes, and the villain can sometimes be deceptively kind and gentle and vice versa. It obfuscates the idea of 'absolute right' into degrees of who loses less. 

I make no assumptions that I know any better, have a stronger concept of what is morally just and acceptable. I think I just need to find the lines, define them for myself and understand the perspectives of others as they relate to how I view the world as well. There are many ways this can be addressed; through politics, through art, through common situations I find myself in every day. The best thing I can do is try to understand them one day and one situation at a time.