Speaking of Truth…

This is a continuation of the discussion from my previous post “truth v. Truth“, because the comment that I started writing there got too big.

Sigh. This is what I meant when I talked about existing in different universes. I do not claim to know the Truth, but that I believe there is such a thing as Truth, and that just because something feels right or seems right, it is not necessarily right.

Such as: A teenager may be thoroughly convinced that their breakup with a boyfriend/girlfriend is a pain that will never go away (and thus consider suicide or something like that). While it is understandable that, with no prior experience to the contrary, they would feel this way, any person who’s been through a couple of breakups could tell them that, given time, the pain will subside and they’ll even be happy again someday. When it comes down to it, the teenager doesn’t just have “another reality” but, indeed, is wrong in his or her interpretation of reality.

In a greater sense, I think all we humans are rather like that inexperienced teenager. We can make educated guesses about reality, but we don’t have the final answers. No criteria that come from within me will be capable of filtering out Truth from guesses–however, it’s likely that as I grow up, gain experience, observe and use my brain, I will be better able to tell what is real from what is fantasy.

This is why I believe it’s so important to study the people who’ve come before us–if our whole life is about reinventing the wheel, we’re never going to get much further than a person can progress in a lifetime. Whereas, if we take to heart the wisdom of those who have come before us (but of course apply critical thinking to what they tell us, rather than just swallowing everything whole), we’ve got a head start, and the possibility of progressing farther in wisdom than we would have otherwise.

If the teenager I spoke of before had a heart-to-heart with an older person, and accepted that they might have a valid point about the transitory nature of heartbreak, that teenager would be nearer the Truth than a teenager who refused to listen to anyone who’d been there before, insisted that his or her own experience was unprecedented and worse than any that had come before, and was set in that mindset.

If there can be such a thing as “criteria” from which we can approximate knowledge of absolute truth, I guess it would have to be based on something akin to “by their works you shall know them”. A society that is operating in a way that is closer to the Truth will tend to have less dysfunction, less crime, less disrespect between people, and less devaluing of human lives, than a society operating with a set of moral and ethical standards that is, to put it bluntly, wrong.

Of course this isn’t a matter of black and white–we’re dealing with human beings here, and we don’t have binary values. Along a continuum, every society, and every person, will be operating with a set of ethical standards that is closer or further to that which is really right. And different people–or societies–might be right in different areas, even as they are wrong in others. Unfortunately, in and of ourselves, we have no way to know absolutely what the right is. Our greatest moral guidance comes from sacred scripture, and yet even that can be interpreted so diversely as to be unrecognizable.

And at this point is where the dichotomy exists: either you believe that there is a standard we’re measured against, or you don’t. I happen to believe that there is such a standard, because I see the kind of hurtful depravity that we sink into, as societies, when we believe that we have all the answers in and of ourselves.

I know myself well enough to know that I don’t have all the answers. (I sometimes pretend I do, but I know better than that!) All I have are guesses–sometimes good guesses, sometimes not, sometimes informed, sometimes complete WAGs. But I also believe that, at some point, my life, my knowledge and my morals will be measured against a pre-existing, external standard, and I am trying to do my best to “measure up”.

I think why I get so frustrated with our country sometimes is because no one seems to be trying to figure out what is right, and no one is willing to alter their behavior or beliefs when they’ve been proven wrong. Does no one learn???

If nothing else, I am trying to make my life about learning and becoming better and being more right than I was when I started out. I might make a million dead-end turns along the way, but I’ll keep learning from every one of those.