Here's the thing about the endless search for fact: it usually ends with a picture of some sad person with a dick in their mouth. The unrestricted search for light also allows darkness to intrude. Google image search is a prime example of this: you image search something long enough without any filters and you end up looking at a picture of some sad person with a dick in their mouth.
The pure, unadulterated fact is smothered in adulteration. Yeah, that is a bit contradictory, but so is just about anything once you really pull it apart. What I meant to say is that, you have to really be willing to push that filth aside to do it yourself. You could just follow someone else's quest or claims, but where's the adventure in that? So, you take it upon yourself to gleam the untarnished picture of reality. Then, you are faced with this question: at what cost come the facts?
What is truth? I've always assumed that facts and truth were the same. Lately, I've started to feel that truth has more of an agenda and facts just are. Truth seems to only need necessary assembled facts in order to live, but it needs plenty of window dressing to get people to believe in it. That, in and of itself, would be great if it meant that the minimal facts that "truths" were based on had enough strength to overcome the preponderance of evidence towards a greater fact.
Let me use a poor example: A government fought wars based on many reasons, only few were known to the public; the few that were known to the public were just; the others held secret were diabolical--which version will be taught to the children? Wow, that was a bad sentence! The truth for the government will be that it was just. The truth for those who discovered the atrocities will see things as unjust. If you lay out the facts it may skew one way or another when the total cause and effect is seen. But what does that matter? People go away with what facts they desire and start decorating it with their own ideology, culture, and beliefs. Either way, truth is a salve, a pipe dream, and ends up being the foundation for the stories we tell ourselves when we go to bed at night: all is well, or all is not well but at least I'm right!
I come to this conclusion because most people that tout the truth do so on the basis of thin air, lots of emotion, and a few inspiring real events thrown in for good measure. The holding dear to these "truths" might in of itself fulfill many aspects of the promise of said truth, but most of these truths promise more than measurable/verifiable results. This is where it gets crazy. This is where the "truth" promises you the bounty of the universe but in reality it gives you something that is more earthbound. We get these earthly results and try to extend them into realms unknown. The thing is that you can start demanding more and more of people with the promises of delicious "moon cheese"; even more, you can control them.
See, what truth does is sell you your script; your performance and how the audience reacts is reality. So, you can act well your part, as the famous saying goes, or you can change the script. But, if you decide to see what really goes on behind the scenes, you are eventually going to open a dressing room and see some sad person with a dick in their mouth.
P.S.
I'll be the first to say that I went a bit overboard on the metaphor and imagery. Bad Grunt!
I also wanted to clarify that I was speaking about what people hold as true versus THE TRUTH. I feel that what gets embraced as truth sometimes is an attempt to make sense of facts, when mixed up with culture, myth and emotion. Objectivity seems to be in short supply concerning matters of faith, because faith is by nature subjective. Yet, we use faith as a way of following and declaring "so-called" truths. This is hardly the way an investigator arrives at a conclusion of truth, by a preponderance of evidence.
My sister Bonnie used to see the evidence of cases in both her jobs at the State Supreme Court and Federal Courts. She used to come home crying her guts out at seeing these things. This was a large contributor to her alcoholism. The whole truth is not always uplifting, but there are people that have to know in order to best help and to best make correct decisions. If you don't want to know, that is fine, but you can't clean a toilet without stirring up the shit.
Earl...
11 years ago
