"What is truth?"

 

         Whilst writing something about my complete oeuvre of poetry, I answered the obvious question, “Why I wrote poetry?” Part of my summary said -

 

“The work is currently done, though I hope in time I'll both learn and share much more about life (of course.) Maybe I will get to learn a totally new form of communication, beyond succinct words? Perhaps it will offer the greatest propensity for clarity, diversity in its reception, and maximum size of that reception. I do not think I am describing music. I do not think it implies a god. It requires discovery, and open-mindedness helps to facilitate that.”

 

The reason words are necessarily not it (indeed words of wisdom so to speak), is because they get understood or not. If you understand them, you had already learned that part of life, and you gain nothing other than validation. And if you do not understand them, you gain nothing again!

Therefore, faced with such logic, my non-fiction book, “I am”, published in 2020, makes clear the point that words of wisdom, can only strengthen pre-existing similar lessons. Just like Hermann Hesse said, (and I often like to share) “wisdom cannot be imparted…” However, common thought patterns arrived at in isolation, by multiple, and *independent* thinkers, become increasingly valid. That is because they can make valuable words still more valuable and popular, hence more attractive to people. At that point, people outside of having had a realisation, or direct life experience, might begin to accept things at face value that were initially unclear.

Naturally, this is where faith and trust enter, whose ramifications could occupy a whole book to themselves. However, rather than having had a direct life experience, if we accept certain ideas may be valuable, and allow either them or their potential, to form part of our mindset, because we have primed our brain to such thoughts and/or possibilities, then we might begin to automatically look for evidence of their reality. It is almost like the psychological mechanism of “confirmation bias.” For example, a badly depressed person might be convinced they are despicable, when they are not. However, even the most unconnected things in their mind, will dictate they are awful, and their previous pre-depressed mental attitude, is unhelpfully blind.

Independent discovery, that further validates and strengthens any valuable age-old wisdoms, should be shared. A strengthening by validation of what appears useful, is a good thing.

Jesus taught in two ways: firstly, through his own acted out life attitudes and behaviours, and secondly by telling parables. The parables were based on words, requiring interpretations. They were less immediate than any spontaneous outcomes triggered by his unwavering character traits. Unsurprisingly then, Jesus’ parables were mostly short, simple, picturesque stories. Once heard, even the longer and more detailed “parable of the Lost Son” (Luke 15:11-32), was/is memorable and could be recalled with some accuracy for the benefit of others.

Pure, or instrumental music, speaks to some people, and such that if voices are involved, they should have no meaning as such. When such music gives the listener chills, a shiver, a sadness, or joy, etc., they feel they have made a connection to a perceived truth of living, and/or life: i.e., reality. Taken further, even in visual art where I lack tangible feelings, there is excitement. For example, I heard a fine artist suggest outdoor painting, or en plein air work, can cause an adrenaline release. It was hard to accept that somewhat sedentary daubing and brushing of paint on a canvas, can initiated the “fight or flight” mechanism; however, it further illustrates how people equate the production of feelings with a truth or an actuality.

Carole King said, “only love is real,” going on to add that, “everything else is illusion.” The feeling that some people attribute to love, is truth, and ironically, Jesus described the greatest love of all in this verse, “greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13 KJV) Surely that terminates your feelings, in particular your love and your reality? The sacrifice of your life: the highest love; is perhaps a paradoxical anti-feeling?

Interestingly, people switch their perceived life affirming feelings off, when they are in times and places of extremes, for example, being trapped in countries with very harsh regimes, or being in active warzones, or much more smaller scale situations such as modern-day slavery, and perhaps the smallest nightmare scenario of all, that of being trapped in an abusive and violent domestic relationship setting, which so many are.

Furthermore, significantly, you realise by considering the experiences of people with serious mental illnesses (SMIs), for example the delusional and exaggerating effects of severe mood disorders such as bipolar disorder, and psychotic depression, that both are part of a mood continuum from wellness to unwellness, but also, that we are all amidst this spectrum. We change positions on it, and whether one has an SMI diagnosis or even a milder issue, all such thoughts above should make us question the veracity of what our feelings suggest, and that our logical and intellectual sides should be given more credit, but do we have the courage for that, especially when some people say to us [take the easy option and] follow your instincts!?

Arts are experienced differently between each individual person. Their colourful randomness precludes the crystalisation of any universal truth. At least not in any objective measure, but conversely, by taking a scientific truth like “acceleration due to gravity”; whether you are an apple, a boulder, a log, a person, or in fact anything that is not like a feather, then Galileo’s demonstration in the late 1500s, must be called a unifying truth.

The mathematical fact that two plus two equals four, can be proven (if a number system is accepted), just like the visual reality of the effects of gravity. However, both these rules, and similar ones, whether they are physically and/or mathematically based, are not what you would expect a sage, a guru, an elder, an avatar, a prophet, a messiah, a psychic, a mystic, a tarot reader, or perhaps a tribal chief, to reveal. The fact is, people offer no such thing as truths, because even when a person has strived towards individuality, and therefore reacted against the pull of group memberships, the mental make-up of everyone is different. Whilst people might have many strong similarities, or overlaps, our brains are not binary in nature: galaxies of on and off switches. We cannot download one and upload another, in the manner depicted in the science fiction film, “Total Recall”, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Truth is the opposite of everything that makes up the world of feelings. Many people look for truth outside of the world. Or they call it nature, because we think nature “is what it is” and it does not plot scheme and calculate. We dislike the cold and cruel intellect. We might insist that a god exists, and that god is outside of this horrible and confusing world. He/she/it is supernatural. But isn’t the opposite case just as reasonable to support: the non-theist one? After all, endless killings occur through the clashes between people of different theist beliefs.

My “I am” book suggests we should avoid forming identities at all, or realistically, keep them to a minimum. In fact, the conclusion of that kind of a tack, might be what some call nihilism (in full or perhaps to a lesser part.) Furthermore, we are so mentally complex, mostly unrelated to each other, and alone, except when joined by sexual intercourse, that more than anything, we should accept a mathematical scrutiny, if one is applicable, the laws of physics, and a chemical constitution.

The last descriptor allows an amazing truth. We know atoms can be split, but in less dramatic ways, changes of the heavier carbon isotope, carbon 14, enables the dating of organic matter. Carbon 14 gradually becomes carbon 12 by radioactive decay, and because both isotopes have a regular, initial relative abundance in nature, then taking a sample and discovering the ratio of the amount of decaying C14 atoms to non-decaying C12 ones; and by knowing C14’s half-life, we can calculate the age of our actual, present-day carbon sample. Of course, this description outlines the method we call “carbon dating.”

Mass, matter, and stored energies remain constant, even when atoms break down, and larger ones both patently, and infamously become atoms of totally different elements (c.f. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, 1945); they only change or convert. The first law of thermodynamics, or in its equivalent form as the law of conservation of energy, says

 

“The total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be conserved over time.”

 

That seems strong, and I think you can say it is truth. Significantly then, the tiny span of years of our consciousness, and sufferings, whilst our energy has been “morphing”, when placed alongside endless time, or infinity, makes us even, equate to nothing.

Thus, our atoms are endless energy, even tangible ones that people might hug. They give out exothermically derived heat, whilst our breath steams up a cold window. Even the increasing potential energy we create when we climb a tower, to perhaps verify Galileo, without having any objects to drop but ourselves, is fact, that we never escape energy.

         Energy is everything. Again, it is the truth!