Avoiding the truth.

In true out-of-touch Guyness, I hastily created an extremely complex system of why I think people are afraid of really communicating on a meaningfully TRUE level. So of course, thanks to the anonymity of the internet, I'll share that now without fear of being held accountable for it.

Methodology: Don't ask. Not that I would mind answering, but that answer would have to do with way the cinnamon floated on my tea, a song playing on the radio, the way the really cute med-tech sitting behind me at the cafe tapped her foot, some random (unless you ask Bunny) words I pointed to in a book on Jewish mysticism, the... insightful commentary on reality from a 17 year old barista, and an extremely complex matrix I created years ago to explain the interplay and ranking between all human virtues.

The Seven Barriers

There are seven levels to the resistance towards truth. They are linear, meaning you cannot pass one with having passed those below it. Not surprisingly, they seem to be aspectual of the most fundamental ways in which we interact with reality.

Gate 1: Truth is discomforting.

This is the level that the vast majority of humans are trapped at. "Ignorance is bliss." In some versions of the myths of Prometheus, his final "gift" to mankind, among fire, industry, and art, was that he took away the burden of each man knowing the time and cause of his eventual death. A surprising number of people would not want to know this incredibly important piece of information. Many of us have a list of things we would like to do before we die, and we spend a lot of time and money on making our transitions smoother, such as wills and life insurance policies, and it would certainly make the criminal justice system work much smoother to know where and when a murder will take place, but yet, so many people would be too uncomfortable knowing when the final grain of sad would pass through that slender neck of the hourglass we call the present. Truth is a pure expression of reality, and that is a direct threat to hope. Hope is apparently a much more powerful motivator than assurance. There is a gambler's mentality to this level of aversion to the truth.

The solution to this first obstacle seems to be nothing more than recognizing that truth holds a value in and of itself. For whatever my opinion is worth, the very idea of communicating with one another is severely diminished by wide-spread truthophobia. What is the point of communicating an idea if the principle parts of the idea are crippled by the filters we set in place?

Gate 2: Truth is work.

And not easy work at that. A lot of things are easy, and many of those are easy because you can't screw them up. We've all had times where we knew the truth would hurt someone else, get us in trouble, get someone else in trouble, make things awkward or more difficult, or just be embarrassing. We make the call as to whether or not the value of the truth outweighs the complications at each instance, and we all have different levels of commitment to the truth in these instances. Some will always be honest about themselves, but refuse to hurt others. Some will deny truth to keep themselves out of trouble, but don't extend that courtesy when someone else's neck is on the line.

The solution here is to accept truth as a principle instead of an instance. Dedicate yourself to the truth and draw strength from it instead of finding your own weakness in it by trying to defy it.

Gate 3: Truth is sacrifice.

Dedication to truth isn't just hard work, it is resource intensive. Truth is only a lens with which we can view any given data. Complete truth could only come with complete knowledge, and while unattainable, even pursuing it would be a life-long endeavor, that not unlike the men who came before Prometheus' liberation, one knows from the outset will never be successful. People dedicate their lives to all sorts of things, becoming famous, finding a cure for cancer, securing a place in heaven, or finding true love. But surely only a fool would walk any of those paths if they knew from the outset they would never reach their goal. Though goals like becoming more happy or making as many new friends as possible are perhaps better analogues, as they become better and better as they progress with no end goal. Ultimate knowledge may be unattainable, but the closer and closer you get, even if you're light-years away, all the better.

Here we cross the threshold through sacrifice and dedication. Recognizing that truth is valuable beyond whatever it touches, that truth *is* and doesn't exist simple as a recurring, but always different, aspect of any given datum - that the lens itself is meaningful.

Maybe this is getting a little lengthy. And it gets a lot thicker from here out (paradigms, responsibility, loss of self, and universal enlightenment). So I'll break it here, so it can be chewed up by the monkeys before I get too far ahead.

Honestly,
Guy