Who Tells the Most Truth?

Art?

Religion?

Philosophy?

Science?

The artists and the religious are fantastical. What is faith but a dedicated hope? The imagination, so powerful in our minds, turns reality when we act upon it. We re-create what we perceive through our own unique lens, however cloudy it may be. Our flourishing stunted by fear.

Fear turns art into bad science.

The philosophers and the scientists find comfort in concretely definable logic and facts, the agreed upon measurable units. Their wisdom stunted by an assumption of control.

Arrogance turns science into a religion that worships itself.

Anything vapor is unstable, unreliable; it won't hold still. Anything concrete is limited. So I ask again, who tells the most truth?

Truths of a more analogous nature, those that require an imagination to grasp, are less cooperative and less controllable. They can be doorways for monsters from our past, but they can also be bridges into healed futures. These truths lie useless if not used for building worlds and become destructive if we allow fear to rule. How do you use your superpowerful imagination? superpower

Tangible truths are addictively satisfying. We're validated and calmed by feeling we are on the same page with our people. The tools of logic and data are useful, helping us to safely explore, to learn, to capture, however momentarily, the world between us, giving us a platform for agreement, strengthening our bonds. They show us practical ways to help one another and take care of ourselves. Those truths can also be boring (they're inanimate). In fear it's tempting to assume the picture they paint is complete. These truths are not generous to perspectives beyond our own.

Humbly acknowledging the limits of whatever truth you crave makes room for connection beyond the tangible, room for other perspectives and experiences, room for divine intervention, room for compassion. Humbly acknowledging their limits, you might say, makes those truths more true.

The most truth is found by the softest, most rational, most open heart. The one willing to move from tangible, concrete places of action and real live experiences of the world around us, to the broader, more emotional expansive activities of curiosity and humility. And then back again. The gentle movement is where we find our satisfaction, not in the stagnation in any one camp. The moment we dig our heels in, refusing to either ride with the uncontrollable or act in the practical we lose, causing loneliness, anger and more fear.

Unsplash: Abolfazi Sorkhi