image: riza 

I have pursued development for some thirty years now. When I was a child I was fascinated by what we may become and realised that it was only partially fixed, those parts to do with genetics and so on but that a huge part of what we become is more open to persuasion. Elsewhere I have described this as the Fluid and the Fixed aspects of our triadic appearance, the third part being the Infinite.

In that time I have listened to people, including myself, and there is always a great clamour for one thing in particular. It is the truth. People speak about the truth with reverence and as though it were absolute when in fact truth is a completely subjective and itinerant quality.

What is murder for one is self defence for another. What is disaster for one is another’s opportunity. And it becomes apparent that truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. People agitate to know the truth of something when there is no such thing. There is only the perception that your education, the sum total of your experiences and your ability to blend and distill those various factors gives rise to.

Yet still people ask, no, they demand to know the truth. Even if they had it would they be able to do anything with and about what they were told or shown? There are external factors that present as absolutes for human life, these are planetary laws and they are impervious to anybody’s perception or take on them.

The facts governing our lives are few and simple. We live an indeterminate amount of time then we die. This may be due to natural or unnatural causes. Everything in between is a matter of choice for us. They are the truths of human existence, the rest is detail.

In my experience many people want to make their lives count. They want to be of account both to themselves and whatever master they serve. This is a noble and an honourable intention. To see oneself as indebted to the Universe for making this opportunity available to us is a high sentiment indeed. Truth, however, is a chimera, glimpsed occasionally in the mists of the primordial state that our race occupies and usually swiftly dismissed.  

The lesson here is to not waste your energies on fruitless endeavours. Create a vision of the future that is worthy of fulfilling and then spend your energies wisely on becoming that very thing.