I recently saw a video by Jordan Peterson, in which he urges people to always to tell the truth, or at least not to lie. It made me think, because that’s an advice I would always give, and also something I personally can’t really do.
Tell the truth? Sure. Tell the greatest truth I know? That God is the ultimate reality, and this world is an elaborate, persistent illusion? That life and death don’t matter, and your relationship with God is the only thing to consider, always? When exactly should I tell those truths? When the owner of the restaurant asks me how I liked the lunch? When the neighbour asks me what’s up? When the cashier at the store asks “would that be all?”
It reminds me of a Bosnian joke where Mujo managed to burn out the latest AI supercomputer by asking him “šta ima?”, or “what’s up?” in rough translation. The computer of course took it literally and started selecting all things that are up. The answer everybody expects is something along the lines of “oh, nice to see you too man, how’s things?”, which is a trivial social phrase that means nothing, really, and is there merely to keep the pretence of a conversation when there’s nothing to say, and a way to be polite about it. In most cases, truth is neither sought nor required.
So, yes, that’s the way I go about things – answer with polite phrases, go through life providing non-responses to non-questions, because it would be awqward to do otherwise, but the fact remains that by doing so I am living a lie.
It seems to me that often, guided by the idea that I want to speak the truth, I say things that open me up to others. Sometimes it makes me feel silly… because there was no need for it.
In some way, I feel that telling the truth is actually opening up to others.
You recently wrote ‘Opening up towards others is a bad idea. You need to be open towards God; with everything else, you need to be reserved and level-headed’.
I wonder how much your statement overlaps with my picture of ‘opening up to others’ and if telling the truth has something to do with it. Or I just mix ‘pears and apples’.
Opening up towards the others might be a thing to do, if they are important to you and the relationship with them matters.
However, this needs to be balanced against superficial contacts with people who don’t matter to you, or are even a potential threat. Opening yourself up towards those might be a really bad idea, or merely cause awqward situations.
Telling the truth is primarily about your relationship with reality; and your relationship with reality and your relationship with God might be one and the same. Where do other people fit in this picture? Some of them might be essential to your relationship with God, in fact. Some might be an undesirable attachment. Some might be a hindrance. Some might be normal daily dealings – work, getting groceries, getting the car fixed and so on. As I said in the other article, it’s the messiness of life that can’t be reduced to a few simple rules, and you need to have your brain turned on at all times.
Thank you for your reply.