The Truth and “The Truth”

I project memory against the frames of reality. The sterile digital reality void of all the emotional and physical perceptions of the body. I watch, frame by frame. Over and over. I watch and wonder. I evaluate and ponder. I compare and contrast. 

What went wrong? What went right? What happened? What could have happened?

“Again?” the voices of the onlookers echo. Again and again, I watch. I hear the various tellings of tales.  I wonder what frames per second my mind works compared to theirs. What angles and perceptions they have I did not. Can a video really capture the sensory overload? The pain, the stress, the restraint? The mental and physical perceptions uncaptured by the sterile digital reality?

My reality is restrained and controlled, until it is explosive, reactive, and instinctual. From point A to point B, I arrived without forethought. System two left to reflect upon the instinctual actions of system one. Frame by frame, memory after memory, I seek to find “the truth.” The truth that exists between the memories flawed by emotions and the sterile videos that void of them. 

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This first appeared in The Havok Journal on July 20, 2024.

Jake Smith is a law enforcement officer and former Army Ranger with four deployments to Afghanistan.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.