Okay, I just finished reading this book, right? The story is told from the perspective of one of the characters and it takes a while for the character to be identified as male or female, it just never said. Before the gender of the character was established I had got it into my head that this character was female. Then what do I come across in the book, "something something . . . too much for an old MAN." I had a moment of great confusion at this point. I was certain this old man had been an old woman. But, I decided I had probably missed something somewhere earlier in the book. However, I get to the end of the book and low and behold, there is a plot twist and the old man really was an old woman!!! I was right! But, it got me thinking about two things.
1) If you believe something and then are shown it is really something else and then you change your mind (see example above) and you put all belief in that is it still true? Or is it a false truth?
2) Who says what is really true and what isn't?
Well, in my humble opinion, I will attempt to give a go at these questions.
Answer for number 1: Gut instinct? That's what I had when I was reading the book. So, did I really change my mind when the book mentioned that the character was an old man? I don't really think I did. Throughout the book I kept thinking "I swear this is an old woman!" I was right. But, do people really change their minds if someone tells them something they thought was wrong? Or do they agree that they were wrong to make the other person stop going on about it? Does some stubborn little part of our mind hold on to whatever we believed and keep us from fully changing our minds? And if so, do we just continue to believe our own truths? Basically I'm not really able to answer this question.
Answer for number 2: If I said the sky was purple and not blue who's to say I'm not right? Isn't reality and truth all perception and interpretation? Scary thought I think.
So, in reality, I haven't really answered these two questions. More like just posed more questions. Oops.
Monolithic
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