We have been made to believe that conscience is an open wound healable only by truth. That’s right but not correct. Some truths can instead make the wound worse. It is not every truth that we should tell or hear.
Stop bragging that you are a lover of truth. I put it to you there are some truths about your family or past you cannot stand or want out. Truths are bitter but some are simply unprintable, untellable and unhearable. Slow down when you flaunt your truth credentials.
Imagine yourself as an incumbent public office holder with many lieutenants -all of them at your beck and call. One truth is that many or most of them don’t like you deep down. If they were you and you them, they would never have hired or accommodated you. How more useless and annoying can truth get?
For one, you can’t tell correctly who those are. For two, if you insist, you may end up locking out the right people while allowing in the wrong lot. For three, chances are you become too anxious, too cautious, too critical, too paranoidal and too pessimistic. For four, you may become another person entirely such that even you don’t recognise you.
You still want to hear the truth? Dear Philanthropist, most of those you help cannot help but speak ill of you. They question the source and quantum of your wealth. They second-guess your intentions, wondering if they are not mere pawns in your quest for more fame, more power, more wealth. Most of those you help don’t need it at all: they are just exploiting what they think is you showing off that you have too much.
That is why, they are the first at the slightest opportunity to deride anything and everything concerning you. Some of them think you gave them too little, not knowing that was your all. If they were you and you them, they would have done everything to ridicule or kill you instead of helping. These are useless annoying truths.
What on earth are you supposed to do with such sure truths, though? Consult a seer or necromancer or start passing everyone through a loyalty detector? Does such a machine even exist? Man can do nothing about things they must handle.
That’s yet another truth that can make anyone dizzy. Like the truism that the dog you are feeding shall tomorrow turn on you. Why not just let the dog die of hunger now and save yourself tomorrow betrayal? Just why should your own dog bark at let alone bite you?
Or, why should your goat that you feed well all the time descend on the only yam your family were to feed on? For crying out loud, why do you even rear something as stupid and selfish and traitorous as a goat? Is the answer to the foregoing in man no longer keeping dogs, goats et al.? And, exactly what are we to do with truths as useless and annoying as these?
Unfortunately, there are many other truths that are more useless and more annoying than those. Have you ever thought about wealth, poverty and the family tree? Even for the poorest of the poorest, there’s wealth somewhere in their lineage, or there once was. Even for the wealthiest of the wealthiest, there’s poverty somewhere or there once was.
The truth is that for your family that is rich now or always has been, a future cometh when thou shalt beg for bread. That’s not a prophecy. Prophecy edifies, rather than creates fear. Also, the other truth is that the other family that is and always has been poor, a future of plenty shall surely alter that narrative.
Some truths are as useless and annoying as they come. Of what use to your current state of acute lack is the foreknowledge that your great-great-grandchildren shall swim in money? Or that all the monumental wealth your family has enjoyed, over the last ten generations, shall one day dry up so much so that your very own descendants become slaves, servants, beggars? Braggarts had better be calming down.
Merely ruminating on some of these truths makes me lose concentration. One cannot not see life as an empty dream. We say we love the truth but are more often than not rendered helpless, useless and angry by some of it. How can truth do that to us?
Alas, there are deeper truths to reflect on. For too many, the world over, their parents are not their parents; they were switched at birth. For too many others, the women they hate and mock as barren are their unknown biological parent. Too much happened which if the world found out would bring down the system.
Sssh, my dear, please leave the system alone. Let sleeping dogs lie. The surname you bear may after all not be your biological father’s. Your mother had to do something when she could no more take in-law tantrums.
So, you see, you should stop making a noise all over the place about how clean your family or you are. For all you know, you may have been sired by a drunk or a drug addict or thief or rapist or murderer -or combined. Mankind should stop pointing the finger or looking for trouble so others don’t become emergency archaeologists. There’s too much truth that must never be dug up!
In rounding off this entry, there’s the need to cover as much generic ground as possible. Here are some truths no one can contest but which are totally useless, annoying and silly. So many students are brighter than their teacher. So many employees are far better than their employer.
So many subordinates work harder and smarter than their boss. So many leaders have no business in leadership. So many prisoners should be out here, free. So many of those walking about free should be in prison.
So many enemies are friendlier than so-called friends. Most scandals are instigated by confidants. Most loyalists are too good for their master. The best bosses have the worst staff.
Education has brought the world more pain than illiteracy has. For instance, 99.99% of the wars that have ravaged our world have been caused and fought by education. Even technology that came purportedly to help has hurt us more than helped. And, there’s no need to discuss medicine and its untold aftermath on the human race.
The father of all truths is that life is an unfair judge and rewarder. Those who have remained diligent and loyal and honest would readily connect to that statement. They not only find that truth about the partiality of life useless and annoying but also frustrating and demoralising. Yet, they cannot change their lifestyle nor can anyone do anything about the truth.
God bless Nigeria!