Yes, we need to be careful about saying there are multiple “truths,” your truth and my truth. But I know for a fact that there are these two truths – the truth of an individual and the truth of the statistical averages of which that individual is a tiny part.

These are the truths that you have to keep in mind, because they are irreconcilable and inescapable. In the aggregate, the quirky truth of quantum physics exists in the “illusion” of the furniture and airplanes and other stuff we see and feel. In these days of big data, public health, polling and social injustice, you run into these two truths in hundreds of ways. I could go into a dozen examples, but here’s one.

The statistical truth of every cancer, chemo and other therapy experienced by Sarah, our daughter who died on December 6, and the truth of Sarah herself. Maybe that’s what she meant by “the prickle of truth” in the end of her poem that seeks an elusive poetry of cancer, as opposed to its scientific truth. She put the poem on her blog, sarahtrainsbrains:

“. . . Beneath the shadow lies

Lonesome news, sorrow that weighs heavy. . .

And a weight you can bear for the prickle of truth.

It’s just a hunch, but other paths run cold

And you’ve got to keep running.”