The Absent Uncle: In the eye of the beholder
I had an interesting blurb appear on my web page a few days ago that got me to thinking. Probably a lot of you had seen something similar to it or have thought it – but to me it got right down to the nub of a lot of our differences in today’s world.
It really makes no difference if you see things from the left or the right, but it seems both sides want to accuse the other of this simple concept in a discussion. And the subject of that discussion could be a very narrow topic but would shade the total perception of an individual.
Those of us in the center (that is how I see myself – others may see it different I suppose) have sort of lived our lives believing that when something is said by public figures that they are telling the truth, that they are not misleading us (me). I am really starting to question this a lot. I mean that I grew up with Walter Cronkite – he always told the truth – didn’t he?
The conflict arises when totally opposite tales are told of the very same subject. That is when the above statement comes in because of the belief in one teller of the tale over the other when in fact – we (I) have actually no way of knowing for certain who is telling the truth. ‘The whole truth, nothing but the truth’ – as the saying goes.
When I used to be a be a manager in business and would be faced with a question of who was telling the truth in some sort of conflict in the office between employees, I would often use the phrase, “Let’s get them both in the same room and see whose face turns red”.
The threat of that confrontation quite often brought about some context clarification and more of the truth, but amazingly in a few cases we did end up in the room and confronting the differences. Sometimes a face did turn red when confronted and admitted the lie; but more often it would turn out that ‘I thought that …’ or ‘Someone said’ … or, ‘Well, everyone knows …’ or ‘…’ - you get the picture. One or both sides had believed something or somebody without really knowing what happened and so had perpetuated the disagreement.
Unraveling these almost Gordian knots took time and patience, plus an open mind by all parties. But the end result, if finally the truth was exposed, ended up making the situation much better, but also led to a greater understanding to all that were involved going forward.
If the truth be told, we all can only hope that we can unravel our Gordian knots that have us tied up in the lack of trust and understanding in the present world.
