“Everything is true but false, all at once,” Jim Reed wrote in his tiny treasure of random thoughts, “What More Can I Say?”

The serendipity and resonance of the Universe are startling.

Or, Dang, I’ve been thinking about that!

Resonance is when when an unseen web catches a thought and vibrates it throughout the structure of reality.

Or, when an idea you thought was unique pops up everywhere like a whack-a-mole game.

Have you ever experienced a conversation where you suddenly can’t remember a mutually known name, and the other person “catches” the memory lapse from you (like a yawn) and suddenly can’t remember it either, even though they would have sworn two seconds ago that they knew it.

The second thought . . . I can’t remember what it was.

But here’s a third one: We can never perceive the entirety of reality about anything. First of all, our brains have developed to screen out a lot of it. Can you imagine what it would be like if we saw all the frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, instead of just what we call “light”? Or what if we heard everything that was making a sound within 50 miles or perceived all the millions of smell molecules floating around_, in other words, be like dogs. (I’d be in catatonic overload. I can’t even read with the television on.)

But there is another level to that thought. There are layers to reality. My desktop is flat. It is wood. It is molecules. It is atoms. It is subatomic particles, quarks, and whatnot, and it is only itself in relation to all that and the rest of everything. It sits on a structure that sits on a floor, which is part of a house that rests on the ground, and so on.

So, two opposite truths can coexist (as I mused about previously). The desk is still, but it is moving. In relation to me, it is unmoving. From another perspective, it is spinning at 1,000 mph due to the Earth’s rotation and moving through space at 67,000 mph, orbiting a star that is moving at 450,000 mph through the Milky Way galaxy, which itself is moving at 1.3 million mph through space. Not to mention, it is in constant motion internally on a subatomic and quantum level.

I raise an eyebrow at my desk. Nope. Not moving.

So, can I believe in peace and war at the same time? Can I want the air condition blasting while I curl up with my heating pad? Can I hold love and loss together?

“But,” my sister insists, “some things really happen, and some things are lies.”

Yes, very true, especially, it seems, in the moment.

My desk is just my desk, but it is equally a desk only in relation to everything else, including time. At some point (long after I have already done so), it will break down into elementary particles, and its energy will be rearranged into something else.

Every truth is but a shadow of reality. And multiple truths exist about the same thing. If you don’t believe this, read two history books on the same subject. As a writer, it is disheartening to hear “There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9), but at the same time, there are unlimited ways to tell the same stories. There are likewise often truths within lies. They say, the “best” lies contain elements of truth.

No wonder I’m confused.

There are paths through the ethics jungle, but although it may seem (or we may choose to believe) they are simple paths, they are never pure ones. Unforeseen consequences lurk, ready to pounce. Trails split, then split again, some ending in nowhere; some ending on the edge of a cliff. One, or more than one, may arrive at your destination, but probably more likely at a destination you never intended or imagined. Think about where you ended up in life compared to where you thought you were going.

My dear friend, Ruthie Landis, who is a body therapist/sherpa/actor, etc., says that within each of us are primary and secondary tendencies in how we perceive/react /behave. Simultaneously, there are what she calls “shadow qualities”—darker behaviors and emotions we are not fully aware of or deny are part of us. We are more, of course, but those patterns are part of the multiple and often conflicting truths of who we are.

I carry around an understanding of “me” as a unique human being. But what is that exactly? To my astonishment, I now have to make room in my “me” for a host of bacteria, a microbiome that helps call the shots on my moods, needs, and multiple details of my health. And I am not alone in here. I carry in my body cells from my mother—not just genetics, but actual cells. So do you, as well as cells from older siblings and, if you have given birth, you contain literal parts of your children (microchimerism). How do these cells influence us?

Life and truth are complex, multi-layered, sometimes contradictory. Two different things can be true simultaneously. Or false at the same time. Or both. We are less than and simultaneously far more than we think we are.

 I write about what moves me, following a flight path of curiosity, reflection, and imagination. 

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