This entry was posted on Sunday, March 15th, 2009 at 3:46 am. It is filed under Akbar Lightning, blast visuals, brilliance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Akbar Lightning is a process I use to explore self-realization.
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But what is truth?
akbar lightning is the truth.
globatron is the truth.
the truth is pure being.
pure being confronts the nothingness.
plus, I got a cut on my finger.
is there a perfect bandaid?
Truth is elusive and always moving. Depends again on your perspective. One man’s truth is another man’s lie.
So if truth is evasive and relative is it power?
Virtual graffiti is a great concept. I’ve thought for some time that the comments on My Space are virtual graffiti. Everyone is putting their tag out there. Be it a flyer for a band or art show, or info about themselves.
sometimes it moves through us, and a discerning person is cautious about this.
i disagree that one man’s truth is another’s lie. it is a contradictory statement. sounds good, but not very useful, except to avoid discussion.
if there is any such thing as the truth (depends upon a belief), then it is true for everyone.
in my experience truth is unifying because of this. if something divides people, then it is necessarily somewhat distant from the truth, if you happen to believe that the truth is good.
speaking one’s truth, when called to do so, is liberating for others, sometimes challenging.
Definitely the pursuit of “Truth” is a human activity since the beginning of time. Have we defined it for all? Come close?
I feel at the core of all there is this ideal of truth, but it definitely fluctuates per person what that definition is.
If we could agree on the definition of truth we would most likely not have war, atrocities, etc.
I do believe truth is unifying but to what extent and for what culture/subculture? The definition of Truth is specific to each culture and subculture. For one culture it’s being true to themselves to oppress women and to be involved in ethnic cleansing to attain Power. Therefore Truth is contaminated in order to attain Power.
With that said at the core of human nature there might be this underlying urge to live a truthful life. Agreed. The issue that arises is how much are we willing to compromise from that definition in order to attain unity?
again, you are confusing truth and delusion. zealotry has no relation to the search for truth, it is in fact diametrically opposed. zealotry is a faith-based set up, it does not call for any searching rational exchange.
truth seeking is a simple process, although difficult, whereby human beings look for good relations with one another.
in other words, we don’t have to necessarily be so relativistic that we accept the oppression and torture of some cultures, just because they believe it to be true. that to me is a way of avoiding simple universal values.
it is the universal that we all share that has become the only taboo in our society. we are all human, we all want to be loved and have a good life. from that basic animal set of desires, a system of ethics and relations can be built. the problem is that people have become so bitter and isolated that they no longer want to discuss how to do it, so they instead throw up their hands and say, oh, it’s all relative, let’s hope for the best.
i still believe in truth, i still believe there is another break-through out there, another ‘new’ way of life that will rejuvenate us and awaken our sense of shared purpose, and i think it has something to do with the new global community. but we cannot allow a few bad apples to make us hide under the comforting shadow of relativism.
akbar
Do you actually think there is anything simple about universal values?
I agreed that there is something at the core of human nature that pushes us towards truth seeking.
and as stated above:
The issues that arise are how much are we willing to compromise from our definition of Truth in order to attain unity?
Compromising those core values is what gets us to a point of relativism. But we all do it on a daily basis to some degree. Do we have to accept it? Also, accepting that compromise is a survival mechanism I believe.
A child soldier in Darfur might not be interested in slaughtering the innocent. It tears them up inside for the first few years I hear. But after their own family is slaughtered before their eyes and their new family has become the soldiers who feed them little and get them high a lot, they soon drop these eternal truths that all children are born with. The tainting of these children allows them to see “Truth” as having a place to sleep at night. If they survive their abuse and are able to escape from that environment it takes them years before they are able to see the horror they have inflicted on others because in that world “Truth” and “Power” are far off ideals. Having water to drink, and food to eat become their truths. And the “Power” is in the hands of the officers who hold them captive.
Survival can circumvent the higher forms of thinking. The brain turns off and relapses into it’s reptilian brain where concerns are much more primitive.
so Frank, are you arguing that the child-soldiers of Darfur are engaged in truthful living?
i’m not sure i can agree with such a bizarre claim.
it is one thing to understand context, entirely another to say it is truthful.
it is a perversion, the way they live, a horrible one. and we ought not be intellectual about such a thing, we ought to remain emotionally outraged, and be ready for unity against it whenever it arises.
and the worst part is that people like us, in our country, where we have the resources to unite for common cause, cannot escape the semantics.
universal values ‘are’ simple, goodness, sharing, giving.
the compromise you speak of, well, i have tried to be uncompromising in my own life about such things, and it has sometimes caused me to sacrifice my own desires. i would prefer that to relativizing my compromises.
perspectives are relative, but the truth is either true or it is not. it takes a certain kind of linguistic trick to water it down.
akbar
p.s. – i did not add the video to my comment, that was done most likely by byron, i like it, but i wanted to clarify
I added that Akbar. I’m sampling comments and trying to add context with apture.com. Feel free to do the same to mine.
The Few Good Men video clip is a good example how truth is relative depending on who you are speaking to.
I agree with both of you that there are core truths to humankind. And I see what Frank is speaking to about how we do tend to get lost along the way.
Ken, I agree with you that truth should not be a moving target, but in the compromise (each of us takes each day in order to survive) it becomes one.
How would you say that we could agree on the definition of truth, when we all have different perceptions and situations that we are living through?
I don’t condone child soldiers, but I do see the trap that they are in and how even though it is personal responsibility at the very end that defines us, there are much greater puppet masters at work.
Pick your poison. Everyone’s truth changes daily. Whoever says that it doesn’t is a not being truthful with themselves.
i don’t agree. my truth is simple. try and be good, try and give more than i take, try and believe in the human ability to transcend our dangers.
although there are challenges, and i am sometimes confused, the truth is always there.
just because i am not face to face with violence does not mean that some of the decisions i have made that have made me less secure will not take me closer to the danger if it comes.
still, i am hopeful that a small group of people can stop arguing semantics and agree that there is a simple truth of brotherly love and that it is worth organizing around.
focusing on the relativity is a way of remaining bitter, and i hope i die with hope rather than bitterness.
akbar
Cool, ya’ll found another Frank to chat with.
I guess you can never have enoughs Franks around.. plz continue, it’s interesting.
Well you’re the lucky one because these simple core values aren’t as evident to many people because of factors that are out of their personal control.
There is no argument from my side that there are core values and truths at the birth of humanity and deep down inside us all. The argument is that they are not so black and white in a world filled with many shades of gray.
I don’t feel this is semantics at all, but maybe one of the cores to our ongoing discussion. Truth being elusive you can’t have definitions.
I believe the exact opposite. I feel it’s freeing and pushes us more to accepting our fellow brothers vs. judging them.