"Just like life. Exactly like living."

I do not ever speak TheTruth. I almost always speak MyTruth, and almost never tell an outright lie. I might fudge details to impart a higher-quality story, but I only very rarely embellish anything into its opposite, at least that's what this guy admitting that he never speaks TheTruth insists. I seem to me to be the only difference between TheTruth and MyTruth, for MyTruth appears to accurately represent only me to myself, never everyone to anyone else. Others might perceive something less than genuine in my confessions, yielding TheirTruth, which might seem considerably less than genuine to me. Nothing irks me more than someone contradicting my characterizations of MyTruth, as if they could possibly know better than I what only I could possibly know. Bottom line: I am not now nor will I ever be (nor do I aspire to ever become) the holder of TheTruth. You might as well entrust the family jewels to the tender care of a cranky two year old.

MyTruth seems slippery enough for a guy like me to handle. A full confession would reveal that it required considerable heavy lifting for me to even recognize MyTruth from all the pretenders marauding around out there. In my relative youth, I seemed to too-easily imprint on one or another FalseTruth and adopt it as my own, spouting received wisdom as if that could ever prove to qualify as wise, or really mine. My certainties told the real story of the deep insecurities wrestling inside of me. It seemed for the longest time that I simply could not be myself if I didn't speak someone else's lines, a script I considered myself inadequate to write myself. I footnoted almost everything I said, as if I had to cite a "real" authority to qualify my own, undermining my own authority by so doing. I was an actor to myself then, though I could not yet acknowledge that aspect of MyTruth. I associated and therefore became, but my fevered explanations eventually failed to fool even me, a self-acknowledged fool. MyTruth sometimes reared his ugly head above that crowd.

I no longer seek TheTruth. I've not grown to disbelieve the possibility of its existence, but I continue to fail to see its relevance for me. If I possessed TheTruth, what could I do with that besides beat others not possessing it over the head with my gilded scepter? What would that gain anyone? I think the pursuit of TheTruth might be one of those meandering trails along the way toward stumbling upon MyTruth, a discovery that should properly render TheTruth instantly meaningless. Doubtless, we share some truths to be self-evident, but since we're each coming at the questions from unique directions, even self-evidence seems distinctly questionable, though still conditionally acceptable. I try to enjoy the more obvious agreements we find without trying to delve too deeply into identifying underlying tertiary justifications for our apparent common ground. I revel in obvious overlaps instead.

AbsoluteTruth seems a tenaciously relative term, utterly depending upon the holder's position and perspective. From below and off to the South, even the otherwise apparently most inexorable seems somewhat questionable, at least unless one's convictions about the AbsoluteTruth preclude further questioning, which comes to the heart of why MyTruth chooses not to embrace any TheTruth. Were I to (shudder) possess such a toxic crown, it might justify the end of my questioning. Where would I be then? Heaven, for me, could not possibly be the resolution of all mystery, but the beginning of even deeper ones. It could not be the citadel defending against any critic, but a stadium filling up with fresh ones. Nothing stops a decent conversation like someone invoking TheTruth in lieu of 'fessing up to possessing nothing more valuable that their own, possibly tin-plated, MyTruth. Speaking From 'I' encourages discovery. Speaking from the leased authority of an etherial eternal, effectively squelches interaction. How inhuman is that?

The best attribute of MyTruth seems to be that nobody else need possess it. (It ain't for sale, anyway.) Some of MyTruth might well be comprised of misconceptions, other parts will later be discovered to have been supported by deep self-deceptions. I learn of MyTruth's shortcomings by sharing it. Others, when MyTruth clashes with TheirTruth, might gift me with an orthogonal perspective, one I could not have ever seen from within MyTruth's temporarily reassuring borders, and a portion of my perimeter crumbles, soon to be replaced by an amendment to the previous boundary. MyTruth might well be short-lived and therefore qualifies as truly eternal. The refactoring makes it so, not its initial inexorability. Just like life. Exactly like living.

©2018 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #CluelessSummer, #PureSchmaltz