Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe. ~Henry David Thoreau
I met with a colleague - a friend - yesterday. He is a teacher of writing and, as all teachers of writing are, he is a writer himself. The class I took with him was "Informal Essay", a genre with which I am particularly enamored, being one to thoroughly enjoy a bit of a wander through the woods of whatever subject nibbles at me. Our meeting was about an upcoming writers' retreat that I'm producing and Matt is one of my facilitators.
As writers often do, we got off-task (business matters can be so...tedious) and were chatting about some of the essays we read in class. One was "The Pain Scale" by Eula Biss. It got me to thinking about levels, and how we seem so determined to measure and compare things, even the immeasurable. How does one measure things like pain - mental and physical? How do we measure sadness or anger or even joy?
And then there's truth, and the expression of it - honesty.
I understand this is a big topic. Philosophers have struggled, and joyfully played with this concept ever since there were philosophers. I suppose I am an amateur philosopher myself so why not take a stab at it. To me there are only two kinds of truth - mine and yours. There is no such thing as "the" truth because that would mean truth is objective, rather than subjective, which it clearly is not. There is a big difference between "truth" and "fact", and it is best not to confuse them.
When one is "expressing" truth, this would be called honesty. It is the action word. Logic would have it that honesty can only be the expression of one's own truth. How could you express the truth of another when you aren't them?
This brings me to a phrase that, when I hear it, makes me want to go all Darth Vader on the person whose mouth it launched out of - "I have to be brutally honest..." which generally precedes a judgment or criticism...not of self...but of another. It is a form of attack wrapped in the disguise of a "kindness", you know, for your own good. Yeah...right.
I've noticed that people who are truly kind and wish to serve the good of others never use the word "brutally". "Brutally" has given the word "honesty" a bad name. When someone says "I have to be honest" (even without the "brutally" part) most people who hear it go on the defensive. We're well trained. We know a potential attack when we see one.
It has come to my attention lately that I have been in the habit of avoiding honesty. This is not to say I am dishonest by any stretch of the imagination. I have the opposite of a poker face. You can read me like a billboard. What I mean is, I will la-la-la avoid the conversation. I will dance around the subject. I will hide. All because I don't want any part of the "brutally" business. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Period.
This does not serve me.
I'm not the only one. Lots and lots of nice people do the same thing. We don't want to cause any discomfort so we just don't go there. Ambiguity is much safer than expressing an uncomfortable truth.
But not really. We all say we would rather know someone's truth than to have to guess and analyze and worry and fret. I believe we all would, even if it stings a little...or a lot. But we sure don't want to be the deliverer of anything that might hurt.
Guess what? No news is not necessarily good news. Holding in our truth is like holding in a hungry mouse. Eventually it will eat holes in us. And for those in relationship with us, not knowing, but wondering, erodes trust like a river through a canyon.
Say what you need to say.
How do we move up the honesty scale? How do we leave behind the "brutal" version and the "unspoken" version to a version that is helpful not harmful?
To be deeply honest.
To be deeply honest is to go within first, then as soon as one is clear and true to self, express that truth with kindness from a place of "I" not "you". To be deeply honest also means to say it when it needs to be said, promptly. To postpone or delay is a slip-and-slide back to the place of the unspoken. It is back in the land of harm.
I'm not sure yet how to get good at this. I think it takes practice which means trying and failing, which also means that it may not be gentle and kind at first. But I am committed to doing it anyway and making amends when I mess up. I will be deeply honest about my intentions and my failings, which is practice in itself.
Anything is better than being left dangling and bewildered by the absence of truth.
Be willing to hear it. Truth...or consequences.
Love is the greatest truth there is. Truth shared is the greatest love there is.
True that,
WS
I met with a colleague - a friend - yesterday. He is a teacher of writing and, as all teachers of writing are, he is a writer himself. The class I took with him was "Informal Essay", a genre with which I am particularly enamored, being one to thoroughly enjoy a bit of a wander through the woods of whatever subject nibbles at me. Our meeting was about an upcoming writers' retreat that I'm producing and Matt is one of my facilitators.
As writers often do, we got off-task (business matters can be so...tedious) and were chatting about some of the essays we read in class. One was "The Pain Scale" by Eula Biss. It got me to thinking about levels, and how we seem so determined to measure and compare things, even the immeasurable. How does one measure things like pain - mental and physical? How do we measure sadness or anger or even joy?
And then there's truth, and the expression of it - honesty.
I understand this is a big topic. Philosophers have struggled, and joyfully played with this concept ever since there were philosophers. I suppose I am an amateur philosopher myself so why not take a stab at it. To me there are only two kinds of truth - mine and yours. There is no such thing as "the" truth because that would mean truth is objective, rather than subjective, which it clearly is not. There is a big difference between "truth" and "fact", and it is best not to confuse them.
When one is "expressing" truth, this would be called honesty. It is the action word. Logic would have it that honesty can only be the expression of one's own truth. How could you express the truth of another when you aren't them?
This brings me to a phrase that, when I hear it, makes me want to go all Darth Vader on the person whose mouth it launched out of - "I have to be brutally honest..." which generally precedes a judgment or criticism...not of self...but of another. It is a form of attack wrapped in the disguise of a "kindness", you know, for your own good. Yeah...right.
I've noticed that people who are truly kind and wish to serve the good of others never use the word "brutally". "Brutally" has given the word "honesty" a bad name. When someone says "I have to be honest" (even without the "brutally" part) most people who hear it go on the defensive. We're well trained. We know a potential attack when we see one.
It has come to my attention lately that I have been in the habit of avoiding honesty. This is not to say I am dishonest by any stretch of the imagination. I have the opposite of a poker face. You can read me like a billboard. What I mean is, I will la-la-la avoid the conversation. I will dance around the subject. I will hide. All because I don't want any part of the "brutally" business. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Period.
This does not serve me.
I'm not the only one. Lots and lots of nice people do the same thing. We don't want to cause any discomfort so we just don't go there. Ambiguity is much safer than expressing an uncomfortable truth.
But not really. We all say we would rather know someone's truth than to have to guess and analyze and worry and fret. I believe we all would, even if it stings a little...or a lot. But we sure don't want to be the deliverer of anything that might hurt.
Guess what? No news is not necessarily good news. Holding in our truth is like holding in a hungry mouse. Eventually it will eat holes in us. And for those in relationship with us, not knowing, but wondering, erodes trust like a river through a canyon.
Say what you need to say.
How do we move up the honesty scale? How do we leave behind the "brutal" version and the "unspoken" version to a version that is helpful not harmful?
To be deeply honest.
To be deeply honest is to go within first, then as soon as one is clear and true to self, express that truth with kindness from a place of "I" not "you". To be deeply honest also means to say it when it needs to be said, promptly. To postpone or delay is a slip-and-slide back to the place of the unspoken. It is back in the land of harm.
I'm not sure yet how to get good at this. I think it takes practice which means trying and failing, which also means that it may not be gentle and kind at first. But I am committed to doing it anyway and making amends when I mess up. I will be deeply honest about my intentions and my failings, which is practice in itself.
Anything is better than being left dangling and bewildered by the absence of truth.
Be willing to hear it. Truth...or consequences.
Love is the greatest truth there is. Truth shared is the greatest love there is.
True that,
WS
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