Truth
Ciao Bellisimi,
A slightly confused Chris here taking puzzled finger to concrete and therefore real keyboard in an attempt to use you as a sounding board and thus work some things out in my mind.
Lessee…. how to start……
Ok, sometimes in life, we hit points where we have two choices. One choice is to agree with someone or something that we actually do not think is right but with which we feel we must agree in order to keep the peace or avoid being attacked.
The other choice is to keep your integrity, speak your mind, screw up your eyes, skrunch your face and wait for the poo to hit the fan and fly at you. Usually is it hardened and nasty poo that hits you and leaves a mark as well as leaving you stinky and with a nasty taste in your mouth. (Ok Ew!)
Sometimes you find these choices and you want to speak your mind but then EVERYONE ELSE is fully convinced that what you are going to say is bad/evil/woefully misinformed and insulting or even dangerous to them somehow.
Faced with these situations, we tend to shrink into ourselves like dying spiders and perhaps even wish we did not have the double edged gift of seeing clearly what others do not.
Why is integrity so hard? Why is it so lonely?
Well, part of it is because generally we go through life in happy agreement with our associates. Integrity does not really enter into the picture unless you meet with resistance in doing or saying what you know is right.
And the more people who either do not see the incorrectness of the situation or who desperately want to avoid conflict at any cost including the cost of their integrity, the harder it is.
This is because, unfortunately, those who fight hardest and with the most intensity are those who know on some level that they have been wrong.
The answer to this question “Why is integrity so lonely?” is that If everyone agrees with you, you don’t really have to worry about integrity,
But let’s look at the word “Integrity” and what it means:
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The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles, moral uprightness.
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The state of being whole and undivided.
While definition number 1 is significant and important, this is not something we didn’t already know. One who is honest both with himself and others and has strong moral principles is a trusted and reliable friend. This is good as it allows you to get along with people better and having trust makes life a lot smoother as life is all about interaction with others.
But, let’s look at definition number 2. “The state of being whole and undivided”
Now I know that this definition generally has to do with material things but if you look at it with regard to us in relation to ourselves we can see that integrity is of vital importance. It is necessary for each one of us to remain whole and undivided.
If we are honest and have strong moral principles that we live by, we are not divided against OURSELVES.
If we stand our ground because we know we are correct, we know on some deep level that we have won something important. We have maintained our trust in ourselves and our ability to hold a position.
If we give in because someone else wants us to, we have lost something important. We are depending on someone else for our truth and to that degree we become slaves to those in whom we have invested OUR OWN truth.
Is it possible that if we do that enough we stop seeing things for ourselves and only can rely on what others tell us? If that occurs, are we still free?
I submit that we are not.
One asks oneself how people like Hitler came to power. The time period just before World War II and everything that led up to it is a fascinating though horrifying study in human behavior. People were caught up with Hitler and his propaganda and invested him with truth. Perhaps they could not see what was happening to their neighbors around them and when things got so bad that they had to confront the actual, horrifying truth, it was too late. Germany and most of Europe were destroyed in a swath of evil destruction that is unimaginable to us now.
However it could happen again if too many people invest someone other than themselves with truth.
I have a theory:
I believe that those who see things clearly, like children who blurt out obvious weirdnesses (“Mommy! Yook at he! He yook like a monstoo!”) see things clearly because they want to. And, (here is the key) they NEVER wish they did not know what they know. I know it is sometimes very safe to not know something and it is sometimes very compelling to take solace in lies. Truth can be extremely painful sometimes but not knowing it does not ease the ultimate pain and can even make it worse when it ultimately has to be confronted in all its awfulness.
Confronting and handling situations by knowing the truth of them is vital for survival.
Truth is a blessing but it is also an awesome responsibility.
And there is no safer repository for truth than you. Remember that.
If you find yourself in situations like this often, it is time to reevaluate the people you keep close to you. Friends who cannot see and confront truth are friends of your enemy as they can be easily manipulated by lies.
Choosing your people with care and with an eye toward their ability to confront truth without alteration can be the difference that makes your life either a war zone or happy and secure.
Those who can are jewels beyond price and loyal friends. Those who cannot, well you can love them but don’t trust them with anything important or they will let you down.
Those who see truth are your friends and I have found that those who love truth and live by it are those who have the courage to stand up for it. And although this can be very lonely and upsetting, it is vital for your own personal power and strength.
The final reason you need people who support truth around you is that there are people in the world who do unspeakable evil. These people know they can operate with impunity because too few people can confront the truth that extreme evil exists in our vicinity.
When evil manifests, most people flee.
One Saturday night back in the day, I was playing with my band in a hard core club on the waterfront. As I was playing I was watching the crowd. I saw two men get into a fist fight at the bar and then several others joined in happily pummeling each other over some imagined slight. This was not unusual so I watched without too much concern. Normally they would duke it out, have a beer together then sleep on the floor till closing. This time was a bit different.
Suddenly there was a universal gasp of surprise and the crowd balled up in the corner farthest from the bar where a lone fighter was standing. He had just pulled out a gun and was brandishing it.
I was fascinated by the reaction of the crowd and realized that this is similar to the reaction of normal people when they are confronted with true evil. They run from the source rather than looking and they hide behind others in a desperate effort to save themselves from it. In essence, they ball up in a corner and cower.
Evil has that reaction. I don’t blame people for shunning it. It is a natural reaction and has its pro survival aspects to it although the contra survival results out weigh them. Since it is so difficult to confront, the natural human reaction is the perfect cloaking device that those who wield this awesome power rely on. They operate blatantly and the “Crowd”cowers in the corner waiting for someone else to handle it.
So who handles true evil in the end? Is it those who run from it?
No, it is those who look at it and run in to handle it. The ability to confront and handle evil is commensurate with the personal power and courage of the individual.
And in the end, there is nobody here but us chickens and there is no Deus Ex Machina* that will arrive and make everything ok despite the fact that we dearly wish there were.
You cannot be cowardly and powerful at the same time. Personal power and success in life depend utterly on being willing to fully look situations in the face and see them for what they actually are without alteration.
Only in that way can you determine the correct targets for correction in your life. Only in this way can we as a people confront and handle the true evil that stands between us and a beautiful and secure world.
Thank you my Bellis. Once again you have helped me immensely to sort this out in my mind. I am forever grateful to you for being here.
Deus Ex Machina: An unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or a novel.
(translation “God from the Machinery” and refers to a machine used in Greek plays to suspend a deity over the stage whose intervention is responsible for the happy out come)
-Google dictionary
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