Ethan Persaud - Making Sense of Truth and Reality

One of the most thought provoking ideas from this course was our discussion of truth versus reality, and it is something that I have continued to reflect on even outside of class. What stood out to me most was the idea that truth isn’t necessarily the same thing as what is objectively real, but rather our human response to what is real. At first, this was a difficult concept for me to fully understand, but overtime it began to reshape the way I think about myths, religion, and everyday life. Reality refers to what exists independently of us, while truth seems to involve the way we interpret, understand, and assign meaning to that reality. Personally, it makes me think of how people view major events in history, that history is written by the winners. Those are the people who control the narrative of the situation because they have the power to. The information that stays throughout history, while it may be the reality that we live with, may not be the truth of what truly happened. This idea also connected strongly to many of the readings that we completed throughout the semester because they are not necessarily meant to explain the world in a scientific way. Instead, they help people make sense of their experiences and their place within the world. This idea is especially meaningful because it applies beyond literature and religion. In everyday life, people often experience the same event in completely different ways depending on memory and perspective. This helped me realize that meaning is created through that reflection. More than anything, this class has shown me that human beings naturally seek out truth, not just in facts, but in the meaning behind those facts. From birth you hear about children growing up and asking “Why?” to just about anything. Those fundamental things from childhood develop to now where we are constantly searching for truth in our realities.


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