Assigned Blog Post 01 -The Convergent Realities Collectively Known as Truth

When we write fiction, we present to the world our own personal reality. Whether this reality is a representation of the truth or an almost completely implausible figment, it is always undeniably influenced by the truth. While as individuals we each hold our own views and emotions, we inevitably interact with each other, even if only on the level of simply perceiving others, and these interactions taint our individual realities until we formulate what we decide to call the truth.

The truth that we create is consistently divergent from our individual realities, as there will always be at least minute differences in how each of the people we come across views the world. As intelligent beings, however, we generally retain at least some image of our own perceptions, thus in each of our minds exist two spheres - our individual reality and our knowledge of the convergent realities collectively known as truth. The truth is something that we perceive through our senses. Our individual realities are constructed by ourselves, through a blend of emotion and the things from truth that we accept as universal facts. Everyone is constantly displaying each of their individual realities, throwing them out into the world through actions and feelings, in hopes that somebody will come along and understand them. Even those of us who shy away from others or attack others are being incessantly perceived by yet others, and thus their realities are made available as materials to be used in the creation of those others' ideas of truth.

One of the ways we can choose to give our individual realities more availability in the world is writing. We all understand language to some extent, thus writing provides a nearly permanent way of putting our individual realities into a physical form. When we write, however, we find that the two reality spheres are not mutually exclusive. Instead, we discover that we are forced to combine truth and imagination to create a good piece of writing, regardless of whether that writing is fiction or non-fiction. Fiction writing cannot fully express the true nature of one's individual reality, as even the creator of that reality has no complete sense of it. It is impossible to know for sure what an extraterrestrial might look, feel, or smell like, so instead we are required to pull concepts from our understanding of truth in order to even imagine those things. We must go through this process of interpreting our individual realities before we can begin to formulate the language through which we express these interpretations, so whatever we come up with will always contain some aspect of truth.

Striking the right balance between truth and imagination is essential in writing. If readers don't get enough truth, they won't be able to relate enough to a story for it to even be understood to any extent. On the other hand, if readers don't get enough imagination, one of two things may happen. Readers could be unable to relate to the story through emotion, so the writing leaves no significant impact. Alternatively, the writing could delve so far into truth that it is merely a retelling of events, in which case readers might simply lose interest. That is not to say, however, that truth is by necessity boring. Just as truth affects one's individual reality, the emotions which shape that individual reality can change one's perception of truth. Thus, it is possible for a writer to captivate audiences by infusing feelings from the heart into the pen and onto the paper. When it comes down to it, the writer just has to know when he or she has reached the right amounts of truth and imagination to get the right message across to readers.

As for me, I am the kind of person who almost always hides behind some sort of facade when I interact with people, for better or for worse, whether I honestly want to or not. My collection of masks is only limited by my mind, and as far as I know, hardly anyone ever sees my true face. I believe my writing takes after my nature - I tuck my own personal reality within the fabricated truth that I translate into words. As I write, I lie to myself and say that the individual reality of one of my masks is the equivalence of truth, so I should put my real thoughts into that one, then mix that with the truth that everyone else perceives. In some sense, the things I write do reflect me - the me that people perceive is the me that seems to have written. However, that me may not be the true me - the me behind the masks, the me that must be sought after to be revealed.