I have been thinking about legends–those stories that are passed down to us about our ancestors and their great exploits.
What if at some point, our elders had found certain parts of the story unsatisfactory and decided to alter it to their liking, and then passed down this altered version to us as the whole truth? We have no way of knowing.
And they themselves, what if the elders who passed the story to them had done a similar thing?
Worst still, what if the ancestor himself had taken the liberty to add or remove certain aspects of what truly transpired in order to cast himself in a more glorious light? How do we know?
I fear that some of the things we hold to be irrefutable truths may actually be false, and the worst part is that we cannot truly know which ones.
I have been thinking about legends–those stories that are passed down to us about our ancestors and their great exploits.
What if at some point, our elders had found certain parts of the story unsatisfactory and decided to alter it to their liking, and then passed down this altered version to us as the whole truth? We have no way of knowing.
And they themselves, what if the elders who passed the story to them had done a similar thing?
Worst still, what if the ancestor himself had taken the liberty to add or remove certain aspects of what truly transpired in order to cast himself in a more glorious light? How do we know?
I fear that some of the things we hold to be irrefutable truths may actually be false, and the worst part is that we cannot truly know which ones.
