Transparency & the Truth

n Gaelic, truth is feminine:
Feminine noun beginning with b, m, p, f

If the feminine noun begins with the letters b, m, p, c or g, then the
definite article changes from an to a'. In addition, the nominative feminine
noun is lenited, i.e. a h is placed after the initial letter which changes
the sound of the noun. If the feminine noun begins with an f, lenition still
occurs but the article remains an.

briosgaid biscuit, cookie
a' bhriogcaid the biscuit

min meal, oatmeal
a' mhin the meal

pìob pipe, bagpipe
a phìob the pipe

glas a lock
a' ghlas the lock

caileag a girl, lassie
a' chaileag the girl

fìrinn truth
an fhìrinn the truth

Dear Kim,

It is a gray, windy and howling day from where I sit on my office on the 13th floor.  The long Indian summer has finally ended and it is funny to hear the  people in my building discussing the weather with such intent. Discussing the weather is such a social lubricant. I get it. But I like to  imagine people riding up and on between floors and discussing the pros and cons of telling the truth.

(Kim: I heard the other day that in a seminar about how to make a sale they said that you should always open the conversation with "sure interesting weather, isn't it?")

You say you feel a responsibility with the gift of feeling the truth. That in the end, we want to be constructive. And you say I have been constructive with the variety of subjects with which  I have dealt in my work. I agree.

At least, I have tried to follow that path. But the question remains about telling the truth about one's personal life. How much is ours to tell, when other people occupy the same territory? It is their story, too, although they may have a separate and different truth.

(Kim: I don't think the issue is that it is their story. Our story is our story and their story is their story. The issue is that we should be kind.)

Please tell me more about transparency, about your question as to whether some people really want others to see into them . . . or if it is just a one way mirror. 

Sarah, who works in the office with me and  I are debating right what you mean by a one way mirror. It is more fun than writing a grant. So right now, she is lying on the floor, trying to  rotate her hip and offering interpretations.

(Kim: so much to say here. We wear clothes . . . but we also hide from others and ourselves so much of what we are and of what we feel. Usually the artist isn't in the work . . . but the work is all about the artist. Some people ask for transparency (Sunshine Law), but don't really want people to see them without their metaphoric clothes. Hence the one way mirror.)

By mirror, she thinks you might mean that people look in a mirror to fix themselves up, to create a performed truth. 

(Kim: I haven't done that since high school when I used butch hair wax.)

I am wondering if—by one way mirror—you mean a reflection of oneself.  You could get some truth by looking at a reflection of yourself.  But you can get a wider truth by getting other people's reflections and thoughts, too.

Sarah likes your drawing but does not like the fact that you gendered truth by calling the figure Mr. So what do you have to say about that?

(Kim: I see truth as masculine. Maybe I'll do a Ms. Truth and see what she looks like.)

And we both want  to know more about your statement that "You like to play with the word "truth" since the postmodernists and the quantum physicists both showed that it is very dated."

(Kim: Truth died a long time ago. So even using the word is play. When we speak of truth we need to ask "whose truth?" The interesting Iraq question is whether the WMD scare was a truth of the "intelligence community" or of George B.)

Later.
Joan
Tuesday, Nov 15, 2005
9:56 PM

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