Tuesday, November 30, 2010

My Side of the Story

"You do not even think of your own past as quite real; you dress it up, you gild it or blacken it, censor it, tinker with it... fictionalize it, in a word, and put it away on a shelf-- your book, your romanced autobiography. We are all in flight from the real reality."


This is a quote from John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman. I really like this quote because I think that it applies to all of us in a sense. When something happens in our life that could be considered painful or unfavorable, we tend to try to black it out by altering what happened in our minds. 


I especially have found the truth in this quote when I get two sides of the story from the two different people involved in a conflict. One person's story has a point-of-view that is favorable to them and unfavorable toward the other person, and vice versa.


I think this is a fascinating phenomenon because the way I see it there should theoretically be only one side of the story based on the facts given at hand. However, I know that this is completely impossible, because different point-of-views and conflict tend to run deep in our blood. 


But what if there was a day where there was only one side of the story in every aspect of the world? Would that story actually be true? Or would it be one person's perspective that everybody else was forced to agree to? 


Somebody could easily become a world dictator in a day. Or somebody who is guilty and on death row for a terrible crime could convince everyone that he is innocent. Those are the extremes, however. There could never be any disputes between friends because there would be only one side. Major political decisions would become a breeze because there would not be two parties with opposing sides of the story. Having only one side of the story could be a good or bad thing, it's just up to you whether you want to use it wisely or play with fire. 



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