Are You Getting the Facts or the Truth?

'What's the difference between fact and truth?' I wondered, about a lawyer's advice to his clients:
Always think 'tell the truth' rather than 'tell the facts' when appearing in court.

I puzzled over the words and later realized: I can know only some of the facts to relate to a person, a situation, or a report. But I always know the whole truth of my conscious thoughts or feelings, or how I experienced something, how it affected me. Truth has no 'spin' on it, and first I must know it for myself. True things are first-hand, up close, and personal. Truth encompasses fact, whereas fact cannot encompass truth.

Telling the truth is tricky for some. Lies have been their modus operandi for so long that they often seem true to the teller. There are also mountains of gossip along with weird news claims going around in print, on video, audio, and yodiyo, and it is very hard, nay, impossible to know all or even some of the facts or the truth. Sometimes claims of 'fact' are clever inventions. The truth, well, that can be hidden for a while, too. Who wants to believe what is shown, written, or said--without thinking, questioning, and testing, or without considering the source? I think of the professional magician's tricks, seeming so real to the untrained eye.

This is a little window on how I think of these things. Maybe it connects for you. It is as true for me as home and love.

Ever wonder if you getting the facts or the truth these days? How can anyone tell the difference? 'Am I  using my brain to test much of the chatter of news, business, and the offers and requests that come my way?,' I wonder. I know I don't know the public people announcing 'facts, news, information, or opportunity.'  

Those are some of my thoughts these days. And, by the way, we've noticed how winter's arrived and spills  snow over many parts of the country. That's a fact. Soon the southern flights of birds will be heard over the houses, most likely, as our winged friends squawk to each other. We are layering up here. I hope you're staying warm if it's colder in your part of this world.  

Originality in Literature and Art

Treasure: the person C S Lewis

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it." --C. S. Lewis

 "You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body." --C. S. Lewis

The quote themes links with Lewis's views expressed elsewhere that emphasize the art of living fully, without "cleverness," and that every human we meet, whether we like them or not, is a living soul. In the nonfiction works of Clive Staples Lewis, these are among the many expressions and concepts that remain with me. I see them linked in this way: Man, male and female, is an original and the highest concept of creation, a living soul made by God. What "originality" and life we have as humans is derived from the Origin of all things. (Great discoveries, we know from biographies, seem to have come unexpectedly through the living seeker--scientist, artist, inventor, e.g..-- in an inexplicable moment of "Aha!"clarity or understanding.)

Especially for writers, the soul of the writer inserts itself, if only between the lines. It happens. In my opinion, that is true for fiction, as well, where being "original" is expected. But originality must be explained like this: think of how many stories are variations on different themes familiar for ages. Literally. What ensures originality from a skilled writer is that the person behind the writing is "an original"--a unique, individual human soul.

As far as style is concerned, have you ever tried to write what look like simple openings of well-known American authors, such as Hemingway, only to find how hard their simplicity was to do well and...well, originally?

Getting back to C. S. Lewis's quotes about the soul or souls...think of how many books sell because they mention soul in the title? Chicken Soup for the Soul series is an easy example. Before that, and maybe the inspiration for the Chicken Soup writers, were "soul food" and "soul music."

Joining originality and meaning, God put into Man, male and female, something meant to last--a soul. I think there might be not so much weirdness to suggest a soul DNA, for each soul, like each person, is similar to others and yet uniquely able to relate to God...or to be ignored or starved. Meanings in all of this are worth  exploring, for the soul's value is suggested in sayings like "He sold (or nearly sold) his soul for that deal," very like the words, "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

And there's Faust, a frightening, dynamic soul story if ever there was one, and inspiring its own variations by other authors. 

How to give originality to themes like soul, heart, love, life, meaning, risk, obsession, mystery....? There are endless questions for the writer to choose, puzzle over, or get writer's block from. Yet it keeps getting done. 
 
To ease the mind about being "original" there is the advice to just write. Begin to fill a page on a theme you've already thought through countless times. Write it your own way, in your own style, and with its own needed balance from your heart, life, mind... while, as C S Lewis said, telling the truth. Truth runs through the best writing, including fiction.

Yeah.

CS Lewis quotes: Source
Updated/revised from Advent to year-round: 6/11/12 

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