Horseblinders.

And the following is an attempt at proper, only mildly-sarcastic writing. I feel so stupid writing properly. But anyway. Enjoy.

Don’t blame what feels like the entirety of humanity for hating your choices, or you, for some acquaint the two interchangeably. Don’t blame them for not seeing your struggles for the choices that disguise it. Don’t even blame anyone for vainly attempting to “fix” you: how could anyone know how hurtful that really is? No, don’t blame them, for they truly just do not know. Mankind is blind except for that which we desire to behold. We do not see in earnest; we see through a cloudy lens which filters the sights of our souls to be only that which we want to see. And some days we make it in this life only because of our misconception of it. We choose to see only that which we can bear to see, and then one always forms their beliefs based on what they have seen. Thus we function in a world of broken and stitched-together people, each living in their own misconception which enables them to barely survive in this crazy place. And then we go on, despising and ridiculing each other if someone happens to have a different misconception than ourselves. We cherry-pick what we wish to believe is “truth”. And we go through life with our horse-blinders on, hoping that nothing happens to disprove what we have chosen to think is “truth”. We live in a misconception, willingly.

By calling each man’s worldview a “misconception”, I am inadvertently admitting that there is a conception that is truth. For a misconception is only such if it is amiss from the truth of things; the correct conception, that is to say. And yet I argue that not one of our kind is born with the innate ability to form a correct conception of this world. Instead, we’ve almost created a sort of blurry “dream-state” in which we perpetually function. This “dream-state” is more or less on a personal level, although it is on a mass level too, since the masses are affected by individual experience. You probably think I’m crazy for alluding to such a state, a state removed from reality; as if we could deny the reality of our surroundings. But I think this isn’t such a fantastical idea. Since we’ve tailored our sights to fit the capacities of our souls, we’ve limited our ability to take in and process truth: forming and functioning in the misconceptions to which I have continually referred. Living in these lies, these false sights, these misconceptions, we stop taking in reality. Rather, we each create a manufactured “reality”, and we prefer to live in that. Perhaps some news reaches us that a friend has spread a rumor about some secret conduct of ours’, a conduct about which we thought no one knew. We take in the news, not with the realization that someone has guessed the truth of our secret conduct; rather, we sputter angrily that the friend is spreading pure libel, has no right to sacrifice our reputation without evidence, or even that the friend is basically insane and thus has zero credibility to his accusations. And with this reaction, what have we done? We have denied the truth of reality and created a separate, more comfortable one in which we can now live. We’ve cherry-picked and distorted the truth. Fabricated realities are of course more comfortable and easy than admitting the truth of things. I hope you realize the irony of this situation. We justify reality to ourselves, rationalizing the secret action, for example, and we deem our distorted facts as acceptable. Anything to keep people from knowing the truth. And besides, it’s incredibly easy to deceive oneself. But when someone questions our distorted truth, we accuse them of libel, falsehood, intentional distortion; and yet we commit the same crimes against ourselves. We lie to ourselves about the truth of things, but we kill if someone else is supposedly “distorting the truth”. At the end of the day, man is not offended by distortion or falsehood at all. He only expresses offense when such a “falsehood” contradicts that falsehood which he has chosen to believe.

           

So basically, that’s where the contrived “dream-state” comes in, because we’re not actually living in reality if we’re distorting and cherry-picking the truth, existing with our enormous horse-blinders over our eyes. We create for ourselves an existence which often isn’t even reality, but a manufactured reality. That reality which may express bits of truth, but in such a twisted way that it can longer be categorized as truth at all. That twisted truth which we conveniently accept or disregard depending on the circumstances. This twisted state of reality is a pretty bad thing for us humans. True, for some it is worse than others’; those who have the worst case of it usually end up in either prison, a madhouse, or Congress.

            

With these contentions I am, in no way, supposing that man is incapable of unearthing any kind of truth. I think we’re of course capable of unearthing it; we just choose what truths we feel like believing. And often, when we discover a truth, we just discard it. Truth is often discarded with three lame excuses.

1. The first of these excuses just negates the very premise of the truth. In the example of the friend exposing our secret conduct, one of the responses was to claim that the rumor was just simply not true. Falsehood. After all, if we can negate the very fact that truth is indeed true, we can justify discarding it.
2. The second usual excuse admits that the premise of the truth may be true, but not without the plentiful support of evidence. Evidence is a qualifier. The most absurd, random ideas can be qualified if someone finds support for it. Support is pretty key. And quite often, if a truth is discovered, we discard it on the idea that there is not enough evidence to support it. That seems reasonable enough, right? But as men, we have the tendency to be pretty sly. We’re pretty good at distorting the evidence or discarding the evidence or simply ignoring the evidence. Gosh, we are such experts at contorting anything in our path that might (God-forbid!) change what we want to believe.
3. The final excuse for discarding truth is to disqualify the bearer of the truth. If we can convince ourselves that the messenger of the truth is dishonest, misinformed, or even just plain crazy, we can easily just throw out the truth he brings. Simple enough, right?

And in these ways, truth is easily discarded by men everyday. Dang are we screwed up. So you see, it’s not that we’re dumb creatures, incapable of discovering truth; it’s more like we’re disgusting creatures, for we would rather get rid of the truth than allow it to change us.

            

I said earlier that not one of mankind is capable of forming a “correct conception” of this world. Perhaps that would be better phrased if I said that not one of mankind is willing to form a correct conception of this world. And if someone happens to think themselves willing to believe truth, and perhaps prides themselves on their logical, correct, and deliciously radical view, their pride clouds their view to the extent that it should probably not be trusted. I think that man is a being created to yearn for truth, and yet his carnal desires for safety, comfort, or even sin often overtake this yearning for truth. That’s probably our greatest flaw as people. And yet, it is sorely inescapable! We are, by nature, unarguably susceptible to abandoning, twisting or ignoring the truth, and thus seeing selectively: all coming together to allow us to function in our lovely, comfortable misconception of things.

            

And believe it or not, it’s not like mankind has ever been devoid of this atrociousness. I mean, take Genesis 3:1. Man was introduced to a conveniently distorted truth, and he fell prey to it. The serpent twisted the truth God had breathed to His creation; he discarded the words of God based on the same basic premises we discussed earlier. He first attempted to negate that words of God were entirely true: “You shall not surely die [if you eat of the forbidden fruit].” He then attacked God’s “lack of evidence” by pointing out to Eve that “the tree was good for food, it was a delight to the eyes, and that it was desired to make one wise” (Genesis 3:6). God had not provided substantial “evidence” to support His claim, so to speak, and the serpent capitalized on this lacking by providing counter-evidence. He lastly disqualified the validity of the messenger, as he portrayed God to have intentionally withheld information from Eve: “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you shall be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5) He employed each of the aforementioned justifications for discarding truth, and man bought it. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and when God confronted them, they just further distorted the truth of the matter by uttering falsehoods to disguise their wrong. Distortion, falsehood, and misconceptions: providing horse-blinders to mankind since the very beginning of time. Sucks that this is basically human-nature now and we can’t escape it.

            

Or can we?

            

As I said earlier, claiming that our views are a misconception admits that, somewhere, there is a conception that is truth. For, in the end, it’s not like you can call something amiss without realizing that there is something right to compare it to. What, then, is the correct way to view this insane world? Through what lenses should we see this place? Great leaders over time have sought the answer to those questions. Failed miserably. But they did try. Mohammed argued that the Islamic religion was the correct conception. Budha claimed that that his conception alone was the right one. Ghandi thought that the lenses of peace were the right ones. Hitler wanted us all to look at things through the mindset of racial supremacy, which he believed translated into moral supremacy. Lincoln wanted people to see things through the eyes of justice, freedom and equality. Christ wanted us to look on the earth with the eyes of hope, forgiveness, trust, and love. What could be the correct view? Weren’t each of these great “philosophers” just men, and thus also capable of forming grave misconceptions? Can we trust their viewpoints if, after all, they’re just a mortal like the rest of us?

            

Hmm. Perhaps, then, in the end, truth is undiscoverable; for if it supposedly “discovered”, it is unearthed by men with a tendency towards screwed up viewpoints. Perhaps there isn’t even any truth at all; we should all just do as we wish, being careful to generally be considerate of other people, you know. Perhaps we’re just so deeply messed up that we’re just incapable of even discerning truth. Or maybe, truth just isn’t worth searching for.

            

Yeah the world’s gonna tell you that.

            

But you know what, maybe those assumptions are wrong. Perhaps man is incapable of discovering truth, but perhaps the creator of truth isn’t really a man at all. Perhaps the only being qualified to discern, unearth, and perpetuate truth is the only being to ever exist in pure, undefiled truth. And this “being” is not, of course, man. Man yearns for truth and yet he cannot create it, cannot manufacture it, cannot buy it, and on his own, can’t even discern it. But perhaps, just perhaps, there is One who can.

            

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.” –John 14:6

Take off those horse-blinders. There is truth. 

And actually, that's not simply my humble opinion. It's just the truth.

-Emily