Evolving the Truth

I’ve certainly done plenty of things in my lifetime that I regret – things that hurt people I love. These indiscretions took the form of words, deeds, silence, or even intentional absence.

As I look back now, especially on one troubling such incident, I realize that I’m no longer sure of the facts, that perhaps I have reinvented the whole thing to vilify the other person or at least to reduce it to no-fault status, somewhere along the way completely letting the truth slide away.

Is this just human nature, to continuously try to improve our own image, even long after something happened? Since none of the things I am talking about will ever be written down in anyone’s book, does it really matter, you might ask. But unfortunately many of them are permanently recorded in people’s minds and hearts.

This same phenomenon of reinventing history undoubtedly takes place on a larger scale as countries try to justify their aggression toward other countries or even toward individuals. It will be interesting to see how the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq appear in the US-written history books in several decades. Will we have forgotten about the hunt for those elusive WMD’s that spawned untold destruction and loss of lives?

The real question is whether time actually does heal all wounds or whether it just distorts the reality of their origin.