The Gentle Truth

This is a page that I’m starting as a journal: really an open letter to a world I’m not always understanding, and that right now, I’m not sure sees me.

Reader, (this makes me giggle, there are no readers here) this is an experiment to see if I can elevate the truth to feel as beautiful as the honey-sweet lies passed around lately.

So often, we blanche the truth, in an effort to make it truthier and in doing so we squeeze out the good bits, the human bits. We take away the little footholds to wedge into that can crumble open a sense of meaning.

Meanwhile, folks who lie to us are happy to give us plenty to cling on to, to stuff our souls into but eventually- they are thieves of our reality by convincing us of their magic act. I believe in reality, in objective truth and will not hand my goodness to them so willingly.

“All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man’s life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.” -Albert Einstein¹

This juicy truth is the portal to my fantasy realm, the tickler of my existential fancy. It was, too, for Madeleine L’Engle- she says the writings of great physicists, including Einstein, compelled her to explore her own inner life further through her seminal work- A Wrinkle in Time.

In comparison to such obvious, stunningly gorgeous feats of exploration like those from Einstein and L’Engle, it is almost physically painful for me to see the hollow attempts at meaning cloyed up from “wellness” snake oil salesmen and MLM women- or worse yet, “tradwife influencers”. It feels off-limits to even include them in this post, in case their presence detracts from the aforementioned greats. Like a knock off handbag, buying into these schemes signals an attempt to prove power and status, but is regrettably easy to clock. They are not the real thing and even if they were, such things are not likely to breed contentment and joy.

I’ve never believed that turning my brain off, that reaching for obedience and simplicity is the path to salvation. I’ve always found a reverent joy in the wonders of science, art, philosophy, and humanity in every aspect. I will fight unendingly against this emerging feminine mirage that tries to paint the world’s complexities as pockmarks and ugliness which only hard-boiled men should contend with. It is within the world’s nuance that I’ve found the most purpose.

¹Einstein, Albert. “Moral Decay.” Out of My Later Years, The Philosophical Library, Inc., Scranton, PA, 1950, pp. 9–10.