new year, new beginning.

i know that it's more than a week into the new year, but it's still a new year, right? so i've decided to come back to my abandoned blog and maybe write something else. what am i talking about? i am writing something else.

my meaningful topic for today is truthfulness.

truth is defined by dictionary.com as "the true or actual state of a matter". but why is it that the truth is often swallowed? it seems like such a simple statement: how it really is. sometimes two truths can be different because the perception and analysis of a certain event can differ between two people. but that is not what i'm talking about. i pose this question: what is truth? and to what extent would a statement be considered "the truth"?

is telling half a story still considered the truth? if someone asks you what you did yesterday and you respond by saying, "i woke up, brushed my teeth, went out, came back, showered, and slept", are you telling the truth? surely there is no lie in this statement, everything you mentioned was something you did. but again, was this all that you did? did you eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner? did you converse with others? this statement is not the complete truth, but it is truthful nonetheless.

on the other hand, sometimes telling half the story can be untruthful as well. say two siblings are fighting, and the mother wants to know who started it. the younger sibling responds by saying that the older sibling hit him first. what was not mentioned was that the younger sibling borrowed the older siblings crayons without permission. the younger sibling provoked the older sibling to hit him first. again, the statement that the "older sibling hit him first" is entirely true. he did. but this places all the blame on the older sibling, when clearly both siblings are at fault. this type of statement is not truthful.

what makes one of these situations truthful, while the other not? i like to think of "the truth" as a statement that puts the audience into the situation of what happened and exactly how each character in the situation felt. the entire truth in the sibling bicker would state that the younger sibling provoked the older sibling first. because half a story is not always truthful, even though it may be the truth of what happened, i am adamant about learning the entire story before making any judgments.

now, how to judge after the entire truth is learned is another situation altogether.