Fear and the Art of Truth

I’ve been thinking a lot about fear today. Fear of embarrassment, fear of pain, fear of saying what you really mean, fear of death. We tend to let fear rule our actions and interactions with others. Most of the time this boils down to protecting oneself from pain (of rejection, etc…), or protecting others from pain. I don’t really have a point here, other than fear often only begets more fear, which in the long run is infinitely more painful than any discomfort that a shared truth can cause.

Related to this is the expression of truth in an effort to alleviate your own pain and feelings of guilt. Often this is just more beneficial to the expresser rather than the receiver. It is a transfer of pain, not a tackling of fear and a shared truth. I think the key to wisdom and a shared trust in relationships is being able to identify the differences and communicate openly about the truths that can be shared without merely transferring pain or fear. This is when you raise truth-telling from the expression of truth to the sharing of trust- from selfish interaction to true relationship.

Eric in a Word: portolan

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Sketch Medium: ink on french dictionary page (actual size 5.25" x 4")