Journal 15 - Truth

In Akutagawa's stories, the truth is hidden until the end or is not even exposed at all. It can be impossible to find the absolute truth in some cases such as In a Grove. When the stories of all the people are contradictory, there is no absolute truth. However, there is still some truth in the stories of In a Grove. They are that the man died and that the woman did "it" with Tajomaru, although we do not know if it is with consent. The author might have told the story in this way so that the readers question what the real truth is. Is the real truth your perception or what comes into your senses? In the real world, it is possible to know the "real" truth. Although it can be very hard, it is possible. Let's just say you play the whisper game. What started out in the beginning and what ended is usually not the same. Different versions of what the people heard are present. The truth was twisted from one person to another until it comes out as one new and ridiculous thing. The "real" truth here could be noticed when you go back to the first person who told it. This happened to me with my game once. There were several news on the internet that the game I like is ending in the near future. When I visited this article, it showed evidence on to another article. On and on, I got to the final evidence, which was the official post from the creators themselves. The article here talked about the endgame, which is like the final stage you could achieve in the game. They were talking about how 13 levels is too little for a game with a big hit. This truth here was twisted so smoothly that it shocked so many fans across the world. I might have believed in two truths before. This is because of the hindsight bias that this happens. It seems like I already know that fact before so I agree to it. Moments later, I agree to another fact which is contradicting to the previous fact. There might be alternative facts depending on who what when where or why the fact was written. The less bias there is, the closer it is to the truth. Two contradictory things can be both true at the same time when one takes one part of the truth and the other takes the other part. If someone expanded on that, he or she could eventually end up with two contradicting facts. Therefore, the truth for me is not my perception but the actual thing that went on, without any bias or twist on the facts.