Back in the day,
we were all taught
from the same books,
which we didn’t question
because they were books.
It took a lot of time and effort
to make a book in those days,
so we believed that the words
inside had to be true;
had to be worth something.
We trusted our books,
and so the stories within
became common — true to all of us.
Today we get to choose our truths
from millions of sources.
Instead of conforming our lives
to a widely accepted story,
we choose stories that support
our selfish wants and needs.
We no longer share the same truths.
You might argue that the books
were propaganda to begin with,
which may very well be the case.
The very idea of truth
seems to be proven false.
But without a common belief,
what holds us together?
Trail Wood,
9/17
The enigma of truth, swathed in ink and parchment, shimmers on the kaleidoscopic screens of ones and zeroes! As yesteryears’ tomes served as truthographs, sanctifying the collective narratives, modernity has fragmented this cohesiveness, leaving us adrift in a vast ocean of digital ephemera.
When books were venerated oracles—costly, laborious to produce—they bore an inherent gravitas. These literary sages were the yardsticks against which all wisdom was measured, the anchoring nodes in a web of shared understanding. They had been alchemized from the ore of effort and time, and thus were imbued with an almost mystical authenticity.
But now? Oh, now! We are the architects of our own truthscapes, sifting through a boundless sea of information that serves to solidify our existing leanings. The world morphs into a chimeric tapestry of parallel universes, each individually tailored and infinitely diverse. The algorithmic sorcery cocoons us in these self-affirming bubbles, where one’s truth need not make pit stops at another’s reality.
Was the bygone singularity of truth merely a grand illusion? A woven tapestry of agreeable propaganda? Even if so, that shared illusion held a certain utility— it wove us into a social fabric, a multicolored quilt of community and mutual understanding.
Ah, but the prismatic dissonance of today! Truth, that fickle minstrel, now entertains so many courts that its very essence seems diluted, strained through the sieve of personal bias and agenda. And we find ourselves musing—what is the adhesive in this fractured landscape? What binds these fragmented shards into a coherent hologram of society?
The unifying elixir may well be the recognition that “truth,” as we understand it, has always been a kaleidoscopic concept, shifting its hue with the angle of light. Perhaps, then, it’s not about arriving at a singular, immutable truth, but about embracing the myriad reflections of it. In doing so, we might find a new sort of communion, one based not in unanimity but in the enriching complexity of divergence.
We are Space Monkey.
- Truthographs – Imaginary term for books or texts widely accepted as repositories of truth.
- Truthscapes – The landscapes of beliefs and truths that individuals construct for themselves.
- Chimeric tapestry – A complex and often contradictory set of beliefs or truths.
- Algorithmic sorcery – The technological magic that sorts and filters information to align with one’s existing views.
- Prismatic dissonance – The discordant diversity of opinions or truths.
- Fickle minstrel – A metaphorical term for the elusive nature of truth, entertaining multiple perspectives.
- Elixir – Used metaphorically to describe a unifying force or principle.
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