How Do You Know It's True?

I found many similarities between chapters K, m, and N of Reality Hunger and "Brief Lives." The greatest similarity I found was the fact that in both pieces we can see how extremely unreliable a memoir can be. Shields states that we usually don't question memoirs but that for all we know, someone could very well base their memoirs on pure lies. How do we know that in "Brief Lives" the information that was told in the interviews or on the back of post it notes actually did happen? Why do we not doubt these stories and believe everything we hear or read about? 

Well, it's because these simple stories fit into our notion of reality. The stories to us seem both possible and real, but then again, what is real? We believe what we think can happen, what we think did happen. Think about it, why would you every doubt in a person that is telling a story that is completely  plausible? 

This left me thinking until I realized that everyone chooses to believe in different things based on their notion of reality. This is an absurd example but if someone thinks that pigs may fly and another person tells them that they have indeed seen a pig fly then the story will probably be versatile to our believer. On the contrary, if this same narrator tells his experience to a person that doesn't believe in this then that person will be sure it's a lie. Therefore, our notion of reality directly affects our perception of what is true.