The Truth. Or something like it.

Went to see Jeanette Walls speak tonight at the Allen Theater. She's the author of The Glass Castle, one of my favorite books of all time! Her speech was very inspirational, as her novel is. The most memorable part was a line she spoke about truth. I can't remember what the exact words were, but she said one time a friend told her that the truth is more liquid than solid; its shape takes many forms, or something along those lines.

I've been thinking about truth a lot lately. I thought those words painted a pretty accurate portrayal of what "the truth" means. It's like the old saying goes, "there's two sides to every story, and then there is the truth." The truth can mean different things to different people, depending on your perceived experience of the event that occured, or words that were spoken. I believe our own backgrounds and experiences can taint the truth.

A good example of this can be proven through a situation that occured at work this past week. My students must not leave the building during lab time, even if they have a break. One of my students happend to leave lab under the premise that the chef told them "you can do whatever you want, as long as you're back at this time and not a minute late." This student perceived this to mean she could leave the building and come back as long as she wasn't late. Chef perceived this to mean that all the students knew they were not allowed to leave the building, but they could do whatever they wanted to during break, as long as it was inside the building. When I approached the student about this later, she told me what the chef had said, and perceived that to be the truth, even though it wasn't. I'm not sure if this making sense, but my point is, that our backgrounds and influences growing up can shape our ideas of what the truth is, and that one person's idea of the truth may not be true afterall.

Anyway, enough of that. I've decided I want to write a novel. Well, I've known this for a long time, but I think I'm serious about it now. I've always loved writing. I would love to take on the challenge of writing and publishing a novel of some sort. If I have some time tomorrow, I'd like to start writing.