There is a strange personal discomfort when discussing about truth. It tends to feel like regurgitation. To scrape at and work for years on the ground of discovery there's always an anti-climactic feeling in the end; what we find feels familiar instead of what we expect as alien. This could pertain to when Robert Browning stated that: “Truth lies within ourselves: it takes no rise from outward things, whatever you may believe. There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness and to Know rather consists in opening out a way whence the imprisoned splendor may escape than in effecting entry for light supposed to be without.” So, just as much as humanity has the insatiable urge to scrape out, and conquer their surroundings for the chance to put their minds at ease, so much can be learned from each individual born into this world it seems. Truth is typically viewed as an event that must be verified through external rigor but the personal truths can be just as important.
The wells of knowledge and insight from other people, regardless of age, are something to be tapped. I think a friend once said that “people are never boring”, maybe because of the infinite amount of perspectives out there. The insight of a person is what makes them able to solve their own problems despite lack of external input. It’s funny thinking back to the recent Scott Pilgrim movie where the protagonist literally digs out love and self-respect from his own body, being there the whole time. Personal truth has its problems though as between people it can clash or become a mutual truth, for better or worse.
There’s the idea that people lie to themselves, implying that it is an active action. Somewhere within the self-deception lies the subconscious, and sometimes it’s obvious, like a memory that bubbles to the surface and the mind tries to push it down. From this I disagree with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote: “Every mind has a choice between truth and repose. Take which you please you can never have both.” From my experiences hiding from the truth only leads to more turmoil. It’s like holding back a flood, and only in accepting parts of yourself that you might not like can you find repose. Well, I suppose one can find peace in a personal sense but supposedly righting an external injustice that has been covered up by others is where Emerson’s quote lies.
Zeiram so if the wells of knowledge and insight from other people are something to be tapped, how would you know whether or not the knowledge/insight that someone has is valid or invalid? Some people may have invalid knowledge, eg. The earth is flat and the planets and sun revolve around earth. This is an insight/knowledge someone might have but it's also invalid.
ReplyDeleteYou mention that in your experience that hiding from the truth leads to turmoil so what about those people that by shear willpower and conviction they make themselves believe a lie to be true. Also what if someone doesn't feel like there's any "wrong" about lying? I don't think they'd necessarily feel internal turmoil, just because society feels like hiding the truth is wrong, doesn't mean that some people have opposing views.
I think personal truths and opinions, while not as wholesome as a decent hypothesis, does have a certain amount of use in the world. An opinion can be used as a launching point in the start of a concept and developed. It doesn't need to be complex; it could be as simple as someone blurting out what if? I'm not saying they're long term solutions as they eventually are compared to the interest of the rest of the population which would be the paradigm.
ReplyDeleteYes, I suppose how lies are handled by people vary from person to person but the nature of lies come into friction with the general interest of the people. In that sense there is still a kind of turmoil. Mark Twain had a quote that "if you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." A person can take a polygraph test and conceal most of his outward signs but there is a measurable increase in brain activity when attempting to express consciously false information. Someone like a sociopath might be without guilt, therefore not feeling inner turmoil while lying but it certainly requires more effort.