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I've always believed in principled centred decision making, and when I learned of the Rotary Four Way Test, it first line "Is It the Truth" resonated very well for me.   Surely if you apply that litmus test, all your actions and decisions will be honourable.

 

Yes, there are such things as undeniable truths, such as "the sun will rise every morning".  But these days, TRUTH seems to be different for different peoples.  For examples:  "Is Sir John A. MacDonald a Canadian nation building figure, or is he a vicious person who sent Indigenous children to their demise?", "Is the COVID vaccine safe or experimental?"  

 

I was discussing this very topic with my daughter during our father's day breakfast on Sunday morning at the beach, and she said something that was very astute: "It's because people have different realities."   I thought, "how can you have different realities? reality implies it is absolute, REAL, there is only one reality."   But alas, No.  

 

You see, "Perception IS Reality", and in these times of digital media and viral spread of information at breakneck speed, different perceptions can be created for different audiences, and people subscribe to these perceptions in an echo chamber where their prescribed perception is reinforced with every byte of information consumed.  So, if Perception is Reality, and Reality is Truth, then Truth depends on what you Perceive, and what you Perceive depends on what you Experience, Learn, and Understand.  We must all come together and try to have common experiences, learn about our commonalities rather than our differences, and try to understand what we are trying to communicate to each other.