Stumbling On Truth
Humanity is on a never-ending journey to seek the truth. From the moment we’re born, we begin playing our part and our voyage begins.
When it comes to the truth, no description can completely encompass every aspect of truth. But, just because all descriptions are incomplete, doesn’t mean they are all equal; some are closer than others. And even though we can never fully explain the truth, there’s beauty in striving.
Here are some of the sign posts I’ve found along the way.
The truth about truth is that it's too big, complex, and amorphous—our minds are incapable of holding it in its entirety. It would be like trying to fit the whole of the universe into a shoebox.
We can stand face-to-face with truth but still be completely oblivious. Sometimes we're not ready for it. We must first be led through alleyways paved in lies and half-truths; our minds only open to the adjacent truth of our current world-view—making leaps is rare. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig wrote, “The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.”
Many of us spend our entire lives seeking truth, yet we can only hope to obtain glimpses of it throughout our lives. Most often, we think we've found it to only have the truth slip through our fingers upon closer inspection. And, it's impossible to speak of truth directly, like trying to grab a passing cloud overhead.
While some of us are lucky enough to catch multiple peeks, the rest must rely on the whispers of others.
If we’ve managed to see the truth, we begin forming our own personal stories around it. While we may be unable to speak of it directly, these stories contain kernels of truth within. We repeat these stories to ourselves like a mantra, so we may never forget. This is our way of reassuring ourselves that what we experienced was real. These stories that pierce us to our core are the ones we treasure until we pass.
This is why cliches still circulate, they each contain a drop of timeless wisdom. A cliche is cheesy and "obvious" until it isn't. Once we’ve lived the experiences embodied by a cliche, we realize cliches are a profound distillation of the deeper truth. Those who have ended up on the other side of a cliche are the ones who perpetuate them.
There are those of us who hate the truth. We ignore it, going against the current of life at every turn.
Some are blind to the truth, but are skilled at seeing what is untrue. By identifying what is false, we inch closer to the truth.
Others conflate validation for the truth. If enough heads nod or enough likes accrue on a post, then it must be true. We begin to lose sight of the truth and our inner compass is remolded to seek validation.
There are those of us who treat the truth as hard and heavy. Immovable even. Something to wield and bash against others, in service of pride and glory. Every step taken towards this false idea of truth calcifies our opinions. Our hardened opinions are used to bludgeon others and worn like sheets of armor - used to wage an imagined holy war that has consumed our mind. The most righteous become the most violent.
Some of us believe truth to be soft, weightless, and ethereal. Like beauty, truth is in the eye of the beholder. It can be anything to anyone, and they’re all correct. The closer we come in proximity to the truth, the more our opinions soften and begin to contradict themselves. Truth-seeking always seems to raise more questions than answers. In our search for black and white, we are left with even finer shades of grey.
But we're not limited to just our own lives - we can sample each other's truths. We're obsessed with sharing and finding these gifts. Artists have dedicated their entire lives to share their truth expressed through different mediums. They make their living by materializing their unique perspective into something others can experience.
Artists have always been revered in society no matter their material wealth because we intuitively know they are society's conduits to the truth. In fact, the cliche of the starving artist is perpetuated because we take it as a sign that their art is untainted by material motives. Once we know an artist has contorted their expression to have mass appeal, their art may still be entertaining, but it has lost its deeper roots to the truth that attracted us to it in the first place. It’s the difference between a calling and a job.
We are attracted to others' stories and art because one life is simply too short to uncover but a fraction of the truth. Whether from friends, authors, or filmmakers, the most remarkable stories resonate in their ability to give us a taste of the truth. And like the painter mixing colors on their palette to create a wholly new color, we each bring our own color to the table. Only by combining all of our colors together can we begin to develop shades of the truth. Something none of us own yet we each contribute to.
The biggest regrets come from suppressing or ignoring our truth and allowing fear to prevent us from sharing it with others. I firmly believe that to live a fulfilling life requires us to tap into our creativity. This is my reason for starting my newsletter and blog. Every sentence, newsletter, and essay leaves behind a small trace of my truth.
Winston Churchill said that people "occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
What will you do with the truth when you’ve stumbled upon it?
Thanks Jackie, Thomas, Fernando, and Julia for reading drafts and providing feedback.
