The importance of truth (cont'd)

I feel I've stumbled on a beginning to the end of my pain by focusing on truth. If something is not true, I need not fear it. If something is true, my pain will cease only when I grapple with it, confront it, deal with it. There is nothing terribly frightening in that, although I might need some time and patience in order to be able to do it.

I'm casting about on the Web looking for helpful statements about the truth. So far I haven't found much. There's this:

     ". . . and the truth shall set you free." (John 8:32)

There is my post on how the law of the Lord, in its perfection, restoreth the soul.

There are these two other quotations, that I have quoted earlier in this blog:

     "Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality." (Frank Herbert)

     "Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

I have a glimmer of a sense that, if I can pursue this line of thinking, I just might be able to come to grips with things that happened decades ago, with what happened yesterday, and with things that happened during all the intervening years. It is just possible that a heavy dose of sunshine might disinfect the whole lot of them.

That is another truth-related quote, I suppose:

     "Sunshine is the best disinfectant." (Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis)

A related theme is that of invalidation. I haven't looked up the etymology, but I'm pretty sure that the words "valid" and "invalid" have something to do with truth.

(Added later: The word "valid," as I have used it here, appears to mean "supported by facts or authority." Invalidation would then presumably mean something like: "denying the existence of facts or authority.")

Here's a definition of (emotional) invalidation:

"To invalidate is to reject, ignore, mock, tease, judge, or diminish someone's feelings."

In order to continue, I'm going to have to announce some truths, I suppose, or at least say what I accept as true. One proposed truth: It is wrong, morally and ethically, to invalidate another. A related proposed truth: It is both wrong and cruel, i.e., profoundly immoral, to invalidate while pretending to "love" the invalidated person.

Just now, as I investigated invalidation, I came across a set of suggested responses to invalidating statements. What interests me, apart from their possible effectiveness (at least for the speaker) is that they are all essentially truth-oriented!

Now, a bit later, I have come across an entire pamphlet that deals with the question how to think about, and respond to, criticism. I haven't studied it yet, but it looks wonderful.

Comments

[Bente M]

-"wisdom is only found in the truth" (Goethe)

-"the spirit of truth and freedom is the pillar of society" (Ibsen)

Remember that sunlight kills the trolls. If you can get the trolls to stay outside their mountain hall until sunrise, the sun will make them explode!

:-)

Listen to Grieg, the hall of the Mountain king :-)

[Keara]

Bente, what wonderful contributions. And the example of the trolls -- how perfect! Thank you so much. :-)