THE TRUTH – can you handle it?

For the most part we look at truth being the opposite of lying, and I can truthfully swing with that. But the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth (so help me Rhonda, help help me Rhonda) is unfortunately not that simple. You see, it has a lot to do with how each of us perceives what the real truth is, it's all about our interpretation and understanding, which can be far from how somebody else sees it.

In the movie A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson’s character, Colonel Nathan R. Jessep stated: “you can’t handle the truth” which is a fairly correct statement and don’t you think that’s sad?  - Or maybe it’s really okay…

A footnote before we get started: I’m talking about the truth between us normal people, not the misconceptions of fabricated truths some politicians consider and perhaps believe to be real. 

Okay, it’s not like we lack ability to deal with alleged truths, but we must understand where that specific truth comes from, because when we know that, we’ll be able to handle it better. What I’m concerned, known truths are that the sun rises, we pay taxes, reality-shows suck and then we die; and pretty much in that order. What I mean is that known truths can be confirmed. It’s all the other truths that are tougher to understand and therefore tougher to handle; the ones not based on proven reality.

When speaking truthfully, we must remember that the person who is communicating with us, is only telling us something that he or she perceives as being the real truth, based on that person’s experience, information, logic and/or common sense. You and I might see that same truth differently based on our experience, information, logic and/or common sense. But what they are telling us is the truth as they see it, what they believe that truth is – and I’m totally fine with that. So the question is: can we actually find any real truth in all this, and will we ever know the real truth if there is any? Made you think, huh? I’m nitpicking, because I really wonder if that is true.

Wouldn’t it be grand if we could handle the truth? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just say what’s really on our minds, instead of having to sort things out in Nano seconds to come up with something that won’t be hurtful, rude or ignorant?
“Do you think I’m fat?”
“You are beyond fat and you are ugly too…”
And that is yet another friend down the drain. It’s not because you don’t love her, she was your best friend for so many years, but for once you just felt like telling her the truth, express precisely what was on your (feeble) mind that very second; she had to ask, didn’t she? Silly girl…

She was fishing for comfort and encouragement, because of insecurities concerning her weight and looks. As we acknowledge that, we hold the real truth back, we give in and then we go: “It looks like you lost a bit of weight the last….” Neutral and gentle, sweet and supportive. But another kind of truth is, that she knows precisely what you are thinking, which would be: “You are beyond fat and you are ugly too…” So why even bother?

In court they do that swearing-in ritual, promising to tell the truth. I don’t care how many hands you have on the Bible, the Koran or Mad Magazine, or how many fingers cover your heart, the whole truth and nothing but – so help me God (or Rhonda), is not always true to any extent. I truly trust that a lot of lying is taking place – remember, many of these people are fighting for their freedom, so lying by not telling the truth (duh!), comes in rather handy to help their case. Don’t get me wrong, I do wish for truth and justice, but we shouldn’t be naïve believing the truth is guaranteed just because a bit of a ritual took place - no matter how sad that is.

If we could secretly carry a voice recorder around, picking up our conversations and reactions to the many things we are faced with, challenged by and have to make decisions about in a 24/7 period, I bet we would find it rather interesting (disturbing, perhaps?) What I mean is that (yes, I know it cannot be done, but go with it anyway, okay?) we would be alarmed about how not-so truthful we really are.

So my brilliant idea is that we pretend not to be influenced by carrying the voice recorder around and are therefore being our normal charming selves (and good luck with that). After a long day, we sit down and listen to all the communication we went through; we dissect every interaction and listen to our responses. I bet you a can of tuna that you might find some honest truths, mixed with things less truthful and a lot of: “I shouldn’t have said that – I should really have said this…” Some responses will make you feel real good, and the rest will question your integrity, kindness and character. But I find this amateur assessment rather normal and can you imagine how much we can learn about ourselves from this little experiment?

We do acknowledge the insecurities we all have, we know how fragile and sensitive we are and that's why we lean on considerations, no matter how far it will remove us from what we really want to say. So NO I don’t want you to tell me that I’m fat (and ugly too), because I am already aware of it, but that doesn’t mean I want to hear it from anybody else. So we approach with diplomacy and carefulness (thank you), and for the most part, that makes for a much nicer place to be in and far better relationships; telling the truth might happen, but in many cases, not even close...

If we all would like to be more truthful, we must work a lot harder towards being able to handle that added truthfulness better, because that’s really what’s in the way. Overall I think we are doing fine, but we can still improve.

To tell you the truth (giggle giggle), I have a tough time when “not being truthful” turns into outright lying; because compared to lies we can all handle the truths a heck of a lot better - don’t you agree? So in that case, Colonel Nathan R. Jessep wasn't totally correct, because we can actually handle some truths; and perhaps more than he thinks we can.

Until next Monday

Another footnote:
I referred to a certain Rhonda a few times, and for those of you who do not know, it’s from The Beach Boys song: Help Me, Rhonda released March 1965. Too tempting not to hum along after: “- so help me God” (help, help me Rhonda)… Oh well, sorry if you didn’t get it… (shoot, now it’s stuck in my head…)

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