A Scale from "lie" to "truth" LO16539

Richard C. Holloway (learnshops@thresholds.com)
Wed, 14 Jan 1998 06:33:23 -0800

Replying to LO16515 --

Ed--I enjoyed reading your ideas here (and Jan's in another posting on
this thread, a very similar thought and a clear analogy). I suspect that
you've hit on the "truth" in identifying the elusiveness of truth.

This thread brought to my mind an article in the Atlantic Monthly, many
years ago, that spoke to the amateur poet in me. The article was entitled
"Duplicity" (I think!)--and the context was simply that each and every one
of us engages in "duplicity" throughout our communications with each other
(including our internal dialog). This is because we must pick and choose
from that mighty flowing stream of conscious thought those very specific
(hopefully coherent) thoughts with which we will express the wholeness of
ourselves.

With every choice, we exclude critical bits of information to get to the
bits of information we finally use. Often, we engage in modeling our
thoughts and words (when we have time), just as an artist models the clay
(or the poet wrestles the word images).

I've often thought that one of the most important elements to being a
"truth-sayer" is being consistent in the choices we make from our internal
thoughts--and in the behavior or action in which we engage. The scale
from "lie" to "truth" is just as elusive as the abstract ideas that it
attempts to quantify.

Ed Brenegar wrote:

> First, are mental models not healthy, or worse, evil? Do they keep us
> from seeing the truth?
>
> Second, what is truth? I don't mean to be contentious or obtuse. What I
> really want to know is whether we can grasp truth apart from any mental
> models?

-- 
"And you will give yourself relief, if you perform every act of your life as
if it were your last."  - Marcus Aurelius


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Richard C. Holloway


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