Fragmented Truth

As I was sitting in the break room at work tonight I picked up a portion of Sunday's paper that was laying on the table. I love all of Mitch Albom's books, and so when I see his articles in the Free Press I like to read them. The particular article that caught my eye this evening was one of his entitled, "Our lives as seen through a window".

I found the concept really interesting. He considers how important windows are to our lives, whether we are in grade schoool dreaming of the playground just beyond out windows, a writer looking for inspiration , or an everyday individual facing our world. He recalled an apartment that he had in NYC and how his window faced a brick wall and grew to become assciated with a sense of clastrophobia.

The story that pervades the article however, is the preacher whose funeral Mitch Albom notes to have recently attended. He draws notices to the fact that the preacher wanted his office window to face his churches playground. This signified what was important to him, and thereby establishes the precedent for Albom's article. Our windows reflect what is important to us.

Near the end of the article Albom states: " And I realize how much we define the world by what we see through our windows".

I really like this idea because it eptomizes a universal truth that we often attempt to avoid. The world revolves around interpretation, whether it be mine, or yours, or that person that lives down the street. Not one of us necessarily see the world in the same way because our view from our windows differ. Our perspectives are different, and therefore our interpretations are different; not necessarily wrong in their diffrence and not necessarily right either. In fact in general our individual interpretations tend to be peices of the fragmented truth.

False Appearance

I can remember my first grade self vaguely. I’ve always been a quite person, but that never stopped me from standing up for myself. I had this friend that year, who would periodically threaten not to be my friend for inane reasons. Usually it was because I didn’t want to play the same games that she did during recess.

When I would disagree with her she would threaten not to be my friend unless I agreed, and rather than cave in I would tell her that was fine. Whatever.

The funny thing is, by the time recess was over she would always come back and say she was sorry, and oh could we be friends again. I would always agree, I would forgive and “forget” as it were. There are those that would say my continual forgiveness is evidence of a failure on my part to be assertive, but I don’t think that’s true.

I think the more important thing about this memory is my reaction to her initial threat. What did it matter to me if she didn’t want to be my friend? As far as I was concerned I didn’t need her to be my friend if she didn’t want to be.

Needless to say I lost contact with her after that year, which isn’t surprising since I switched schools and I believe she moved out of the area. In fact, all I remember of her is that her name was Yvonne, and of course the above anecdote.

But this is all to prove my point, which may in fact prove pointless. My point, is that sometimes appearances don’t always paint the full picture. You can believe that you know someone and in reality not have the slightest idea who they really are. I may not always seem to be the most assertive person, but what seems to be isn’t always the truth.