Partial Truth

Partial Truths

Two people stand

before the same event

and both walk away

holding something true.

Not because every claim is

equal,

but because experience

is shaped by the one who sees.

Facts belong to the outside

world.

Meaning belongs to

consciousness.

A single moment

has many angles.

No single pair of eyes

can claim the whole.

Your past, your culture,

the quiet history of your

beliefs

decide what the moment becomes.

The same sound reaches two ears

and turns into two different

worlds.

Like the blind men and the

elephant,

one touches the leg and calls

it a tree,

one holds the trunk and calls

it a snake,

one feels the side and calls it

a wall.

Each is correct

about the part they touch.

Each is incomplete.

Arguments begin

when we mistake our fragment

for the entire animal.

When we clutch a partial view

and demand it be the final

word.

The wiser path

is not to abandon truth,

but to hold it more lightly-

to recognize that what we see

is real,

yet never the whole of what is

there.