Welcome back to Ma Between Sounds, the podcast where we ask questions, we discuss different topics, and we allow each of us to come to our own answers. What has been on my mind since the last episode, which was honesty and explanation, is truth. Because in there I did discuss that honesty used to mean to me that truth and honesty went hand in hand. However, as I've gotten older, what I wanted to discuss this time is that for me, honesty and truth are different. Honesty is your subjective beliefs, and truth, by its own definition, is something that is absolute. It is referring to real events, it refers to verifiable data, it refers to things that can be proven. And honesty is about your internal morals, what you think it means to be honest to someone, as opposed to truth. And topics such as these are always interesting to me because we simplify things in humanity. We simplify the belief of honesty, and we then say that that's truth. However, by definitions, it's not. When I say to my children, I want you to tell me the truth, what I'm saying to them is, I want to know what happened. And that's verifiable data in a situation. And then when I say to them, I just want you to be honest with me, what I'm saying to them is, I want you to tell me your honesty, what you think the situation is in your own belief system. And they're very different. And being a parent and someone who has spent a life looking at grammar and words and their definitions and what they mean, I'm pretty pedantic. And most people who know me will know that about me. I will question, I will say, is that your honesty or is that the truth? And sure, people like me can be frustrating, but at heart, I'm a librarian and I'm a learner, and I was a librarian way before I actually went to school and became a certified one. I'm also an English major and I have a master's in English. And when you study those subjects and you read, you learn that characters in stories in both history and fiction have honesty, and then we have truth, meaning what is the verifiable data and what actually happened. And nowadays we have videos that we take of our own and we send them, and they're able to show people the truth of what happened, as long as we haven't edited the video or we haven't done anything that has changed the truth. And that's why I think it is so important today in our environment that we make those definitions, at least it is for me. But I'm actually really interested in what that means to everyone else, because this conversation of honesty actually brought people to me to discuss what they felt was honesty and truth, and sometimes truth can be a burden as well as honesty. And I think about it from the situation of following. If my spouse and I are talking, and I say, What do you think about this shirt? I want their honesty, knowing that I might not like what exactly they have to say. Now that's their honesty, but then there's also the truth, and the truth could be: I work at a job, and at that job they expect people to wear, let's say, a work polo. That's the truth, and it's in a contract, let's say your employment contract or something of those natures. I'm very simplifying um my thoughts on these situations, but it's really interesting to me because we take words and we assume what they mean, and sometimes I like to take a step back and I actually open up my Oxford English dictionary that has a magnifier because it's there's so many words, and I look it up and I look at what does it mean? Because words just like technology, just like our lives, just like us, they evolve. The meanings evolve, even how they're spelt evolves, how we look at words evolve, things that we used to say we don't say anymore, and that's the same with truth and honesty. And they're similar and yet different, just like us. We are all similar and yet different. And I find that I find that really satisfying that we have the ability to evolve if we let ourselves. And that's what truth and the conversation that it brought from people on the outside, that's what it brought to me, is that there's a philosophical belief on honesty and truth, just like there is for many things. There's the dictionary that tells us what it is, there's synonyms for it, and then there's our own belief system, and it could be from where you grew up, it could be from your parents, it could be from your grandparents, it could be just from the society in which you were brought up in. All different things that can change how we feel about these words. But for me in my life, right at this moment, because I have kids who are younger, it's very important that I distinguish that for them. And it's important for me because I want them to know that if they tell me something and that's what they believe, that's okay, that's their honesty. If it's not exactly what happened, well, then we look at that and we can discuss it, and I think that's something that I like about it. But that's my perspective. Different people have different perspectives, and that's what I love about these conversations, is that it's brought that. And people have come to me and discussed it, and I would love it if any of you who are listening have a different take. Please reach out to me. And I would love that because I think it's really good that we can discuss. I love discussions and I love hearing people's opinions and and I love hearing their stories. Because at heart, I'm a librarian who loves to read, who loves words, and the etymology of them is very important to me. So I want to leave you with this question. What does truth mean to you? And is it ever a burden? This podcast has been produced by Sentinel Studios.