A truth inventory

I was reading, in Time Magazine, Bono's article on Al Gore, as part of their "Person of the Year" issue. Al is first runner up for that honour, behind Vladimir Putin, a charming fellow who in time we may discover if he was the next Margaret Thatcher or the next Stalin (my guess is, somewhere in-between).

And Bono, the politically-active superstar of rock, invoked a word that Al quoted to him, from Gandhi (definitely not the Stalin or Thatcher type): Satyagraha.

It means to hold tight to the truth.

As a Quaker, I am required to do this, to seek truth and hold on in a death grip that not threats or pain or the seduction of media can loosen. It's a tough bastard concept, holding on that tight to anything.

And it occurred to me that one thing I might benefit from is a "truth inventory", actually sitting down and trying to clearly differentiate in my mind between truth and untruth. Not just truth and lies, but also allowing for supposition. Author Robert Heinlein used a class of character in some of his books who were called "true witnesses", people who were trained to only report the absolute, objective observations. When asked what colour the house on the corner is, instead of saying "White" they would be more proper to answer "At ten o'clock this morning, when I passed by, the South and West faces were white". Even that has suppositions in it.

Much of what I know in this world has been taught to me. Some of those teachings I have tested, and some have been proven or disproven to me by hard experience.

But to actually break it down to that which I know and that which I merely believe or have accepted out of convenience. That gets sticky and prickly.

Descartes will have a field day. We all must accept certain things as convenient truths, like our own existence. You can invoke your Freshman Philosophy professor, who will probably never be cited by anyone who didn't take his class, as he explains that even that is a bit presumptive. I don;t want to waste time with the mental masturbation that is free-range semantics.

I want. I need. I seek the truth.

I'll get back to you as soon as I sort out ten things I know for sure, but here's my starting point.

Truth #1: I am limited to my senses and my reasoning for verifying truth, and these can be subverted by internal will, prejudicial thought patterns and external influences.

This will be fun, the way I define fun. Some people relax in an easy chair, I prefer to relax running an obstacle course littered with live landmines and HK drones, in my head.