…I hear that all the time. If I had a dime for every time I heard it, I’d have enough cash in my wallet to pay my PTSA dues this morning (12 bucks).
Usually, folks that say this go on to wax eloquent on their convictions and beliefs on everything from politics to morality…and usually, they are very adamant about those views, saying them like they are actually the truth, not just “for me,” but truth, period. The word “should,” for example, comes out of their mouths with at least some frequency.
I have to chuckle. Do they know that they are coming both ways? It’s like the vegetarian who eats at In and Out every day.
When someone says “truth is in the eye of the beholder,” most often she doesn’t realize that she’s given me carte blanche to completely ignore everything else she says. After all, if I, the beholder, am the ultimate decider of what is true *for me,* why listen to her? I’ve got my truth, it makes me happy, end of story.
Only if there is actually a real truth out there, and she has at least a partial grasp on it that I lack, should I listen to her and adopt her view.
Of course, sometimes when the one liner is said, the person simply means that though objective truth exists, very often the perceiver, for one reason or another (emotional bias, for example), cannot “behold” it. He believes something else, which he mistakenly calls “truth.”
This is hardly controversial…but most people who adopt the one liner, I think, go with the former way of thinking, and are hence caught sawing off the branch they sit on.
