THE TRUTH

Does anybody really want it?  An excellent question and starting off point, indeed. I’m not sure that anyone really does – that is, want the truth. Because when you are really honest with someone, they usually recoil in shock.

Case in point: Over the last year, I experienced major construction work in the high-rise building in which I live in NYC. They were working on the exterior of my building to repair/repoint the bricks, something required by NYC law every ten years or so. When the work was completed(about two months ago), I noticed that the screens on my windows were filthy, and had small holes in them, enough to let the mosquitos in. When the building finally agreed to replace the screens (this is NYC after all!), maintenance came in, did a two second walk through, and determined that only half the screens had holes. After they left, I looked closely at the screens: there were holes in all but one of them, so I requested they come up again. The maintenance staff got angry at me, and intimated that I had put the holes in the screens where they hadn’t noticed. I was telling the truth, and the maintenance guy got angry, and muttered; “I do my job, I do my job.” I was never suggesting otherwise, since he is usually quite competent. But his reaction shows how much people get angry when confronted with a truth they don’t want.

Another reason why people may not want the truth: Almost all of us live in our own virtual reality created by our particular thoughts and belief systems. When faced with a belief system or thought not to our liking, our first response is to dismiss it as untrue, even though it might be absolutely true.

And many of us are brainwashed to believe things true when they are not.  If you ask the average person if the United States ever supported Osama Ben Laden (our number one enemy after 9/11), most people would say no – absolutely not! Yet the truth is different: we supported him to get the Russians out of Afghanistan.

So the truth can be hard to decipher in some life situations, you can’t force anyone to accept “your” truth, but you can make the effort to discover the truth for yourself.  And from what I can see, that  effort is well worth it.