Truth part 3 -- the importance of truth to me

I could talk about how the scientific method requires truthfulness and integrity, and all the obvious benefits of knowing how the universe really works is beneficial for society as a whole. But for this installment on truth, I think I'll put a more human face on the matter: my own.

For my wife, one of the more irritating aspects about being around the Pompotous is the fact that my predictions are correct more than 99% of the time. Being correct -- making statements that are as equivalent as possible with reality -- is a passion with me. My success rate comes from two factors: I tend to not make predictions in the absence of evidence, and I'm very good at analyzing evidence.

This drives my wife bonkers, a view that most, if not all, of my male friends have trouble understanding. (Not to digress into a discussion of gender.) Reality is what it is, why be upset about a statement demonstrating a good grasp of reality? To me, demonstrated accuracy is a helpful indicator that my model of the world still works, meaning I'm still in some sense sane, and that my opinions and judgments can be trusted.

The wife is also slightly irritated when I apply my truth principles to her interactions with our daughter. Maternal instructions of "eat some chicken and you can have more bread" would result in Baby K taking a single small bite and expecting more bread. Fortunately, after years of practice with me, Mama was able to adjust and now couches instructions in more accurate terms (i.e. separating out what must be eaten to gain the reward). I caved on the whole Santa Claus/Easter Bunny thing, and needed something in return: in our direct dealings with each other, I think we need trust, and trust can only come with accuracy, because accuracy reduces the chance of misunderstandings.

Excalibur is a movie with some excellent moments, and one of my favorites is when Merlin is pressed to provide an answer to "what is the single greatest virtue?" Eventually he spits out, "Alright then, truth, that's it, yes, it must be truth, above all. When a man lies he murders some part of the world." I love that part. Because I was raised in a family of lies.

Yes, to be truthful, my attachment to truth is in part an emotional reaction to my life. Some of the truths behind some of the lies I was told for between 11 and 30 years (all revolving around my maternal side):

• my grandmother had 3 husbands


• my grandmother's first husband beat her into a miscarriage after WWII, thinking the child wasn't his (it was)


• my mother was a bastard


• my grandfather, after a fling resulting in my mother, was married for 15 years and had 2 children


• my mother, as a teenager, located her biological father and stole from her stepfather and used it to fly to where my grandfather was, proceeding to break up his marriage


• my mother used her middle name because her first name was too close to that of one of my grandfather's legitimate children, whom he never saw after my mother broke up his marriage


• my grandfather, while a finalist for sergeant major of the Army, in part didn't get the post because he had joined the Army as part of a plea bargain over an assault with a deadly weapon charge (knifing someone at his high school prom)


• my grandfather was 1/2 Native American, which explained how so many of his friends from his Army days were Native American, but he himself "passed" during my lifetime

While in college I ended up hospitalized for a bit with a large combination of illnesses. (Fortunately I responded to the antibiotics and steroids, and so didn't have to get a spinal tap to rule out meningitus.) I was 15, and Gaby C. (my first girlfriend, 20 years old) didn't visit me. When I got out, the first time we engaged in foreplay I noticed a hickey on her breast. I wasn't quite horny enough to ignore it nor stupid enough to believe her when she said I had placed it there. Thanks, Steve P. Given where my life went, and that I became friends with the three other guys I know she dated during college, I should probably forgive you.

Julia G., the 16 year old I'd fallen hopelessly in love with when I was 11, was getting ready to start marriage number 2 by the time I reconnected with her after college, law school and joining the military. Rather than hating her betrothed, poor Steve M., I came to love him like a brother. So the first time Julia G asked me to become more than friends I left the state, coming back a year or so later when Steve M called and asked me to come back to help take care of Julia G and her mitral valve prolapse.

The night Julia G took off all her clothes and jumped on me, telling me to fuck her right then or leave her house forever happened to be the one night that Steve M wandered out of the bedroom after going to sleep. Julia G insisted on talking to him first, after which I was invited in and Steve M announced that we should try to make this work with all of us. A year and a half later, in a fit of pique, Julia revealed to me that she had given Steve an ultimatum that night: say what he ended up saying or she'd divorce him right away and move in with me. And, she added, I was surely too smart and must have known that's what she did. (I did not, by the way.)

When Curtis B, a married colleague of mine, took such great pains in seducing me, my track history, obviously, had me knowing that this would end badly, that her protestations of love for her poor husband, Kevin B, were incompatible with the "will always love you" and "will always be there for you" and so on towards me. Yet I ended up relying on them for a couple of years, right up until she broke up with me forever for the 1st time within a week or two of my devastation on learning that my grandmother had Alzheimers. (In case you are wondering, there were a total of 3 "break up forever" moments with her, the second right after she got pregnant for the first time (she said she was already two weeks pregnant the last time we had sex that go around, and I had no clue she was off the pill), the third after she felt sufficiently recovered from the miscarriage of the first pregnancy.)

Given my experience, I think that it is safe to say I agree with Merlin. On a personal and emotional level, truth is vitally important for emotional wellbeing. Lies generally don't last forever, and a lie discovered is the death of trust.

It is truth, people. Truth can, indeed, set you free. Without truth, without reality as it really is, there is just falseness, error and pain.

Truth: deal with it.