What good is knowing the truth if no one speaks it?
This is Part 1: I seek truth.
Part 2: On Sanders and the Pope hopefully coming soon.
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I seek truth.
A simple statement, but one with far reaching consequences. I live my life according to it. My strength derives from it.
I pursue more than a truth, though; more than my truth, even, and our truths are the most important thing we create in our short lives in this world.
The truth is what I look for—it is what binds us together and links every single thing in the universe. It’s the fact of gravity and the warmth of a person I love sleeping next to me. It’s the laughter of a small child wondering at the expanse of the cosmos and the stench of fear and breaking as someone is raped in the confines of the cheery house with the yellow roses down the street. It’s the bond formed in the heart of suns between two bits of matter and the sound of a hushed whisper in awe of the sheer power of the masses in revolt.
The truth is what is, what was, and what might be.
A truth is not special—it means little but for that moment. It may be true for an instant, forever, or not at all. A truth only needs to be what someone believes or wants to be true. A truth can be immensely powerful, but it doesn’t mean much.
My truth is special. It is my perspective on the world. It is all that I have. My truth is never defined: it is always changing, moving, shifting. It begins and ends as I do. It is me. My truth is something special, and something shared with every other thing in the universe simply by the virtue of our existence. I have my own truth, as does the tree growing outside, as does this ancient rock we live on. Every possible thing has its own truth, each as valid and necessary as the next—for who is to say that a rock does not experience the world? Who is to say that our Earth, our solar system, our galaxy does not experience the world? The matter it is made of is not much different than my own, and the universe changes it much as it changes me.
Our truths are what matters. We say we live, but what we mean is we experience—in other words, we interact with those other things around us. Some things are lucky enough to enjoy that experience through the lens of self-awareness. As one of the lucky ones, I pay careful attention to my truth, my experience. I live, I love, I laugh, I cry—all with the knowledge that my life has no meaning: I am free to make my own.
And so I do.
There are few things in my life that have been as rewarding as enabling someone else to more fully appreciate their own truth. I think this is why I am drawn to teaching and education; the moment when it all clicks and someone experiences something new is precious to me. Watching someone’s perspective change and evolve is a beautiful thing. (If I could be, I would be a shaman.) I simply cannot express the joy I feel when helping someone learn and understand more about their world, about their truth.
Doing so is not an easy thing, however. It has been my experience that our truths can only be fully appreciated when we seek to know and understand the truth. This is the reason I am an atheist, a socialist, and generally societally-maladjusted. I live my life according the the truth as best as I can determine it. I work to enrich my knowledge of the world and to constantly open my mind to new ideas and perspectives. I am not afraid to admit I am wrong; hell, I proclaim it loudly to remind myself of my own fallibility. My truth depends far too much on the truth to accept a truth.
Therein lies the question found at the top of this essay: what good is the truth if no one is willing to speak it?
The truth is a phenomenal thing, but it is meaningless without our truths, the perspectives of those random things contained within the truth. The truth does not provide me much understanding if I cannot commit to living by it at all times. If I refuse to speak truth, not only I am preventing myself from fully living the life I happen to have come by, but I am preventing those around me from doing so as well.
So I seek truth. There can be no other way.
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Since this is a political forum, I promise I won’t end here. It’s not a particularly satisfying essay, and I’m not sure it will mean much to anyone but me. But I have been wanting to discuss Sanders on here for a while and have not yet been ready to do so. I think I can now that I have explained in part a significant chunk of how I look at the world and what is important to me.
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