Honesty and Truth

It's sort of funny, sort of ironic—and irony is a sign of truth—that explaining the pleasure of being able to tell the truth can sound insincere. It demands that the telling itself is as truthful as possible. That the telling itself doesn't become a stage for ostentatious writing. The telling itself must be so simple and true, and it must not be forced. If it is forced, it will show and outshine the message intended to be conveyed. At the same time, though, to write simply isn't easy. It takes the most careful crafting; which is, ironically, precisely what one does not associate with honesty.

We tend to think that honesty is saying what is on your mind as it comes to mind. We think, “say what you feel, belt it out if you have to,” as if raw spontaneity were most sincere of all. We tend to think that honesty doesn't require exactness of language, that honesty cannot be premeditated. Such a presumption isn't necessarily incorrect, for raw spontaneity ultimately conveys the very same message as any carefully crafted honest verbalization. The important difference, however, is that the former message is “spoken” not necessarily by the words alone, but by the multi-faceted language of the act of expression, itself. That is, body language, tone and volume of voice, even the degree of control the speaker employs while communicating the message. As I said, the sum of each of those communicating parts adds up to the same message as the carefully crafted verbalization. However equivalent the passionate rant may be in theory, it is almost always the less intelligible mode of expression, as the message is delivered via distinct modes which are difficult to process into a single, unified statement. Where this method fails, the carefully crafted method succeeds.

So, it is erroneous to believe that honesty must gush out of someone who can no longer hold back the words he's been keeping secret for so long. It is erroneous to assume that a delay in response can only mean that the respondent is wordsmithing with an intent to deceive. Just as reasonable is that the intent of the respondent is to place his words in such a way that they can convey a clear, rather than a cryptic, honest response.

So it can be that the person who's been holding back those words, that message, for so long, hasn't been holding them back for any reason other than his deep desire to speak them correctly. His fear that he would convey the wrong message with the wrong words binds his lips so that he can organize his words in the fortress of his mind until he has figured out exactly how to say them, and more importantly, determined if they are still relevant after sober reflection.

What else is honesty but the telling of a truth, any truth? And all truths have a lifespan, so to speak. An emotion can be true for an instant; for example, the desire to kill somebody who wrongs you, or the desire to sleep with somebody who fans your ruby coals to flames of lust. Such responses to certain experiences are true, insofar as they are responses, but they are ephemeral insofar as they are not acted upon, in the end.

Similarly, a thought can be true to whoever conceives of it and believes in it. That thought, whether other people agree it is true or not, is no different than beauty: true, at the very least, to its beholder. Now, the longevity of that thought's truth depends on if a more convincing thought replaces it, just as scientific theories or “facts” have been true until they are replaced by more accurate theories. This change of truth value is inevitable in a world of evolving minds and their natural progress towards increasingly sophisticated understanding.

So truth isn't what we think it is. It isn't the eternal thing we'd like to believe it to be; not anymore. To accept that description is tantamount to a man of this century who still believes that the world is geocentric. Such a fanciful interpretation of truth is no more than the eternal, disembodied “Forms” first discussed by Plato.

Today, in the age of carbon-dating, we must acknowledge a parallel between the artifacts we date with modern methods and the truths with which we must live, regardless of whether we accept and believe in them, or reject them immediately. Much like the materials of the physical world, all of which either perish and decay or transform into an entirely different classification, a truth lives and dies. A truth may live and breath in the minds of single men or entire generations, and a truth falls from the branches of the tree of knowledge and becomes a shell of a once living thing; and that shell may or may not be discovered later only to be inspected like the artifact that it has become.

Most truths, however, are never mined from quarry that is the human being. Instead, they die inside a man. These truths will never be wrapped in the cloth of perceptible language and lay in the manger of acknowledgment. As I said, in most cases, a truth will die in a sound sleep.

Now, honesty and truth are related; that is intuitive enough. I don't think I need to detail their differences to illustrate that they are not the synonyms. A suitable analogy is that truth is the coin that purchases trust, whereas honesty is the agreement that the exchange of truth for trust is a fair deal. Honesty, then, is the means by which truth is delivered. Or, in other words, honest is the man who barters with truth; and truth is his currency. Truth is his capital. But this does not make him a saint in the world of commerce. Remember that, as measured by their longevity, truths are not all of the same value. And often times it is hard to know which truths will preserve their value and survive the sometimes fickle, inevitably changing marketplace of spiritual exchanges. He may offer a truth of his that he believes will endure, only to discover that as soon as he has offered it, its value diminishes, and thus becomes a debt for he to whom that bill of truth was paid. In this case, the karmic laws preside, and the debt he has caused will, in turn, result in a loss of trust in him (for, if you remember, truth purchases trust when accepted).

So the man who seeks to be the honest man must know the nature of his currency, and by knowing the nature of his currency he comes to know himself.

The Honest Man is no less vulnerable to vice and so-called deadly sins as any other. For example, his high regard for his currency might lead him to make too many exchanges. He may even become charitable, giving his bills out to anyone who seems in need of it. Again, karmic law will preside (for, above all, despite the virtue that might inspire him to give, all exchanges must be fair) and he will find that he has abandoned as many friends as have honored his currency with their trust. He will find that, on paper, he has broke even, lost nothing; but he will feel the sum of those frivolously generous exchanges in his heart, for he will see that in losing them, he has lost time. He will see that what he thought was virtuous intent was in fact a mask for frightfully egotistical motivations. If he is strong, then he will accept what he's done not as devastating personal flaw, but as an inherent fallibility that he must appreciate as fertile soil in which he must continue to grow. He must expect to blossom and give, anew. He must feel his storm of his self-judgment as if it were rain come to soak that soil. He must acknowledge that his time is not up, but a new season has come. And, above all, he must not do to himself what he has done to so many others: he must not abandon the Honest Man that he wants to be. He must expect the coming of many seasons, and accept their unpredictable days. He must see that it is not for trust that he gives, though it is trust that's exchanged, but that it is to give that he gives. He must reconcile his dream of saving the world by giving to all with the understanding that giving at all means to give and take wisely. He must accept that while the world is big, his world is small, and that the only world he can change is his own, for his world reaches only as far as the wisdom with which he invests his truth, his money, his power.