A Blog About Telling the Truth

I decided to start this blog when my essay, “Anniversary,” was published in The Sun. This autobiographical essay emerged from my desire to honor what I saw as some of the complex, painful, beautiful, tragic truths of my parents’ marriage and lives. I worked hard when I wrote it not to dwell only on the “negative,” yet also not to shrink away from it. I worked hard to embrace my parents in this essay, because this is how I want to embrace the world.

Because I believe that truth heals, I wanted to publish the essay under my own name. However, The Sun was concerned about the possibility of causing harm or discomfort to my parents or others mentioned in the piece. Since it was not my intention to cause harm, and since, after all, my “truth” isn’t necessarily anyone else’s, I agreed to use a pseudonym, Leah Truth. (“Leah” is an anagram for “Heal.”)

Yet, because truth is so important to me both in my writing, and in every other sphere of my life, it seemed somehow wrong — dishonest, in a way — to just use a pseudonym and leave it at that. So I decided to create this blog as a way to do some public musing on this thorny issue of “truth-telling,” and to invite comments from others.

Last year, a friend christened me “Hot Fire Truth Teller.” He meant the moniker to honor me, and in a way it does. Yet this honoring was bittersweet, since it came on the heels of the shattering of a relationship which had been extremely important to me. My former mentor could not tolerate my telling what I saw as the truth; although she had asked my opinion, when I told her I thought she was in error, she saw it as a grave breach of loyalty. Almost a year later, my grief about the loss of that relationship is still very deep. At the same time, I do not regret having told the truth as I saw it.

What follows is a series of provocative comments about Truth – some of which may seem to contradict each other. I find, however, that I agree with all of them. In fact, I find myself wanting to alter the famous Whitman quote in a way I doubt Walt would mind: “So truths contradict themselves? Very well then, truths contradict themselves. They are large; they contain multitudes.”

As time goes on, I will probably add more of my own reflections on this question. For now, I invite yours, and offer the voices of a panoply of other thinkers:

Each recognition, each insight, each honest admission, each shedding of a partial mask, each breaking through of a defense, each step of courage and honesty where you take responsibility for your negativity, is a lighting of yet another candle. You bring light into your soul by bringing truth into your darkness.

– Pathwork lecture #219

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. – Albert Einstein

Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it. – Andre Gide

The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. – Gloria Steinem

There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil. – Alfred North Whitehead

Chase after the truth like all hell and you’ll free yourself, even though you never touch its coattails. – Clarence Darrow

Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit.

- Edward R. Murrow

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

- George Orwell

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.

- Josh Billings

If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people. – Virginia Woolf

The world is too dangerous for anything but truth, and too small for anything but love. – William Sloane Coffin

All truths wait in all things. They neither hasten their own delivery, nor resist it. – Walt Whitman

And I won’t waste another second / living in hell like it’s some kind of heaven. / And if one truth leads to another / Isn’t there one I can uncover? / There isn’t one I can’t discover. – Beth Orton

I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever. – Krishnamurti

Truth and beauty live most happily amid complexity and paradox. – Jane Hirshfield

Deep inside I know that trying to figure things out leads to blindness – that the desire to understand contains a built-in brutality that erases what you seek to comprehend. – Peter Hoeg

This entry was posted on Friday, May 25th, 2007 at 9:26 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.