3 Truths about the mechanics of truth

We tend to think of truth in a very binary way: true or false, with nothing between. Perhaps we admit the existence of shades of grey. Yet we don’t tend to think of Truth having fundamental principles and processes—mechanics—that it must obey.

Here are three truths about truth that are, in my experience, always true.

1. The truth is always uncomfortable

If the truths we seek were palatable, easy to assimilate, and integrated gracefully into our lives without disruption to our established beliefs, routines, and constellation of relationships, we would’ve long ago accepted them.

The reality is that the truths we seek are always uncomfortable, for the simple fact that we’re not ready for them.

We’re not ready to accept that we’ve believed a pack of lies all our life.

We’re not ready to face we may even have defended and promoted those lies.

Not ready to face the reality of our families, our politics, our economics, our country, our history.

Not ready to face the painful assimilation of a higher truth, with all the disruption it brings—breaking away from our family, falling out with friends, leaving religious groups or political parties, abandoning the stale security of outworn careers or relationships.

Next-level truth always comes with an ‘ouch’.

2. We can only see our next level of truth

What is the ultimate truth? Where does it all end?

A long way from this desultory planet with most of its inhabitants so mired in polarised unconsciousness they don’t even know unconsciousness is a thing.

As we drag ourselves out of the swamp of unconsciousness, recognising painful truths like generational trauma, the mother wound at the heart of the human condition, and the Patriarchal Operating System that directs our self-destructive species, it’s all we can manage to glimpse the vaguest outline of our next higher truth.

Imagine you’re driving a 1950s car on a winding country road at night, in deep fog. Your headlight beams cast the faintest light on the road ahead, most of it thrown back at you in sparkling confusion as you try to follow the snaking road.

You can see nothing but what is immediately ahead of you—and if you could, it would make no sense to you.

Ultimate truth—if there is such a thing—is useless. All that matters is our next truth.

Which brings us to the third truth.

3. Truth, like DNA, rises in a spiral

In his cult classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig writes: “The truth comes knocking at your door. You say, ‘go away, I’m looking for the truth.’ And so it goes away.”

That’s because truth is not linear. Like galaxies and DNA, it rises in a spiral.

In The Universal One, Walter Russell writes that “all motion is spiral” and that “all effects of motion are expressed in apparent opposites.”

This means the truths we’re looking for are spiralling away from those we currently hold—and will even tend to resemble the opposite of our current beliefs. Which brings us back to all truths being uncomfortable.

Whatever the truth you seek, expect to see these mechanics.

Image: Fotor AI