© Pierre Maré,
2004 - 2007
Offbeat 10
Once upon a time I used to wear a tie every day. It was the mark of sartorial good breeding and a good way of avoiding the principal’s wrath. If there was anything good to be said about the tie it was the pleasure of removing it shortly after leaving the schoolyard.
It was probably dumb luck that I never discovered the origins of the tie. I had a big mouth, and the principal would not have been thrilled to hear that ties became redundant when men stopped wearing breastplates. He was never good at debating, but great at handing out detentions. He placed a large amount of emphasis on ‘what is fitting and proper’, and would no doubt gladly have sacrificed us all to the demands of a suitably patriotic war, if only just to put an end to the endless stream of adolescent debaters.
Unfortunately, people like him thrive on a simple truth that requires no questioning, only obedience, accepted behaviour and a tie, at dinner, at the ballot box and on the battlefield. Unfortunately, to maintain the stability of the truth that defines their existence, they are all too willing to sacrifice the happiness and even the lives of those around them.
Small people find refuge in ‘bigger truths’, out of a need for belonging and security. And as like attracts like, more are drawn to the common beliefs that, so that a so-called ‘truth’ gains momentum and permanence. However, the belief that an idea can be graven in stone actually holds little value in the long run, even at the most fundamental level.
We learn from an early age that a minute contains sixty seconds, and that a second is just long enough to say ‘Mississippi One’. This apparently is a ‘truth’ that will never be altered. However there are telling exceptions.
In his book, ‘Borderliners’, Peter Hoeg tells of children who swing out in front of an oncoming train. When the rope from which they swing reaches its apogee, time slows down for the children as they experience the thrill and fear of oncoming death. I experience endlessly slow seconds as I watch a bottle of sauce that I swore was safe on the counter head towards the floor. The whine of a dentist’s drill or the drone of an unwanted speaker may also slow time down.
On the other hand, moments of intense enjoyment and satisfaction zip past as if they had important meetings to make and critical deadlines to keep.
If something as fundamental as the truth of time can be questioned, what can be said for other truths? The apologies and confessions of churches for various transgressions of newer moralities and the odd genocidal faux-pas says a lot about the advisability of a rigid dogma, no matter how divinely inspired it may seem. And as far as I can remember, the ‘peace and love’ generation voted Reagan.
Truth is actually a very individual thing that is determined by what happens around us and how we interpret it. It’s not something that is easily shared or self-evident to all around us, especially if nobody else likes your interpretation of it. In this instance, the term ‘truth’ can become so variable that some may even see it as synonymous with the word ‘lie’.
Sticking to a truth that everyone agrees with is not particularly difficult. Holding onto your beliefs when everyone is convinced you are lying takes guts, and occasionally the services of high-powered legal team.
If truth is so individual, it is probably not worth defining. Perhaps, instead, we could live by a set of guidelines dictated by common sense. For instance, instead of saying something like, ‘killing is bad’, we might say something along the lines of ‘if you kill someone, someone else is probably going to kill you back, so maybe you want to go home and think it over a bit first’.
If there is a truth, it won’t be found in comparisons of absolutes, but in the gray areas in-between. In spite of the ugly truth of the school tie, I have a small collection of ties, not because I wear a breastplate to work or because I need to identify where I belong, but simply because they make me look good.
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