I often think about how we humans have a talent of messing things up. And why is that? Why do we need to make mistakes and either learn from them or not? Is it something in our nature that always longs for a little bit of “adventure,” no matter what the price will be?

Reading George Orwell’s famous dystopian novel 1984 made me think, mostly about how humans tend to seek power or how simply we obey irrational orders. What forms our worldview? Our family, our country, our nationality? And what can change that view? A tragedy, a new place of life, or just more knowledge? How do we decide what’s right and what’s not?

In the book, the main character Winston works for the “Mintruth” — that is “Ministry of Truth” — and he is responsible for historical revisionism. To be more precise, he rewrites history and fits it to the current version of “truth.”

1984 may be just a work of fiction, but isn’t that the perfect description of our world and of our society?

In my case, living in Ukraine, our particular state seems a lot like this. This is because we Ukrainians hear a kind of truth, the Russians hear another one, and we all claim that our truth is the right one. Because of this, our shared history suddenly becomes separated, friends become enemies, and all of this is because somewhere along the way, someone rewrote the truth.

What can we do against it? Examine, dig, search for the real truth. Don’t believe everything that we’re told. Check, check, and then check again. Why is this so important to me? Because I am Ukrainian, and I want to be able to hear, believe, and tell the real truth.