Per Werner Herzog, there are two types of truths. There is ecstatic truth and the accountant’s truth. 

The accountant’s truth is: 

“….merely skirting the surface of what constitutes a deeper form of truth in cinema, reaching only the most banal level of understanding.”

Ecstatic truth is the elusive kind that lies in the deeper Strat of cinema:

“It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization.”

Though Herzog referenced the two truths in context of filmmaking, it is applicable to any creative outlet. That is, if you are of the belief that every creative outlet is a manifestation of the human attempt to understand humanity at the deepest and purest level. 

There could not be a more blasphemous set of quotes to a person who lived in the world of analysis, data, and the scientific approach—at least at the superficial glance— than "Facts do not equal truth.” But that’s what Herzog is referring to when talking about the ecstatic truth. 

"I change facts to such a degree they resemble truth more than reality." - Werner Herzog

Facts are true until they are disproven as we earn more as a civilization. Then there is truth and reality. 

"Mathematicians don't know truth, only deeply religious people do." - Werner Herzog

I admit I was quite uncomfortable thinking about what Herzog said. My bias was to just accept whatever my heroes said as truth. But his statement gave me pause and primed the shovel to think deeper.

Having been raised Catholic until high school, I decided to reject religion once I left high school. Religious freedom was a deal I made with my parents back then. Each family has its way, this was ours. 

Over time, I’ve come to consider religion to be something greater than a mere belief in a deity. If one considered Buddhism to be a religion then the concept of “god” becomes null as Buddhism is closer to a way of life with many teachings stemming from a historic individual. 

Then doesn’t religion become nothing short of the mere act of worship? Worship doesn’t have to be limited to deities. As David Foster Wallace pointed out:

"There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. If you worship money and things, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings."

We can worship anything. It’s whatever besoms the primary pursuit of life and in many ways the purpose of what drives our action. Many worship money, fame, or power for one. Some worship their parents or real-life heroes. 

It can be said that those who know they worship something are closer to their humanity than those who live in denial of what they are worshipping. Though I rejected Catholicism, I knew some Catholics who worshipped because they considered the religion and its teachings to be their lighthouse. It guided them through the storm of life and that’s why some chose to believe. I can understand that. 

Worship is personal and the soundness of the logic only matters to the worshipper in question. It doesn’t matter if I don’t agree. No one is right. Even Pascal, a mathematician, said the logical answer was to believe in god (look up Pascal’s wager). We can only hope to understand each other and ourselves.

That means the truth we see is relative. That’s because the reality for an individual is relative to each other. Isn’t that what truth is? Isn’t reality what we collectively decide to be truth based on a collective belief? Some go ahead and say something different and that could be their truth but it becomes reality and truth for us all when we all decide to agree with the trailblazers who were once labeled as misfits. 

It’s something deeper than what we see through actions. There is more to the actions. Why are the actions committed? What is the intent or belief? The creative can communicate this reality. 

It’s a truth that isn’t clear until we dig into it. It requires context. It requires understanding. Much like how we can’t really understand a person in a 30-minute conversation, it takes time to understand the subjective reality people live in. 

“In moments where you know that you are not alone anymore. And that’s the ultimate I can reach. If there is anyone later after seeing [any of his movies] has a feeling ‘I’m not alone anymore’ then I have achieved everything I’ve wanted in my life.” - Werner Herzog

You know when the truth is truth when you can deliver a visceral reaction. The kind when I feel someone out there understands exactly what I’m thinking about or going through. Is that not truth? Not what “they” say. But when I see myself in that reality constructed for me because that construction is the reality formed by my experiences.