Category: Words

Truth is like water

The boat yeah you know she’s rockin’ it
And the truth well you know there’s no stoppin’it

–Jack White/Denial Twist

 

 

Well?

Hmmm.

 

Oh!

 

According to the song, you can’t stop the truth.

Is  that true?
I tend to think so, mostly.

 

 

Some people are really good at holding the truth in, but it seems like the it usually manages to squeeze its way out of any available crevice.

 

First I was going to say “like toothpaste” but then I thought that it would sound better to say it is more like water…and really, how far could I carry that toothpaste analogy? (Note to self: see what you can do with the toothpaste analogy as a mental exercise. No one will want to see THAT.)

 

Right. Truth is like water.

Water is  so…so….what?

Simultaneously benign and bad-ass.

Watch your kids run through the sprinkler laughing on a hot Summer day, or watch a flooded river tear your home right off its foundation and float it away.

You need water to keep you alive. Water dripping on a rock can wear a hole right through it given enough time. Water can suck you into a whirlpool and kill you.  Water inside of you, water in the ocean. (Must resist the urge to throw some Talking Heads verses in…must…resist)

 

Strong through softly unyielding persistence or  through big crashing, explosive waves.

The truth can behave the same way as water. As essential to our well being as water,  as insidiously and gradually dangerous as the damage from a tiny invisible water leak or as dramatically and immediately destructive as a tsunami…the truth with generally find its way out into the world.  Ready or not. Here it comes.

The truth can be as sweet and soulful as  telling your first boyfriend you love him or as mind blowing as  telling your husband you’re addicted to gambling and have been embezzling from work.

 

Water to sustain you, or water to carry your whole life away.

(Disclaimer–I’m not addicted to gambling or embezzling from anyone.)

 

People tend to discover who you and what you really are, no matter how you try to hide it. You’re better off just letting the truth flow out of you. Channel that energy you’d waste keeping it inside of you into something else. Something cool. Something you’ve always wanted.

 

Be ready to share it, to hear it.

 

No one really wants a truth tsunami, although it would be a relatively good band name.

 

Have a big glass of water now.

 

 

 

 

Bonus lyric, just because I like it:

If you think holding hands is all in the fingers,
Grab hold of the soul where the memory lingers, and
Make sure to never do it with a singer
Cause he’ll tell everyone in the world

What he was thinking about the girl.

 

I don’t know. I don’t care

“I don’t know. I don’t care. And it doesn’t make any difference.” ~Jack Kerouac

 

“Doesn’t make any difference.”

In a sense, it’s obviously true. After all, we all end up dead. 100% of us. Should we not eat or drink because it’s a waste of time given the inevitability of death? Obviously, all of us who have access to food and water have made a choice to eat and drink on a regular basis. It makes our limited time less so, and given the right kind of food and drink it also makes things a lot more enjoyable. Or less so, given a lack of food and drink.

Things we do can make a difference to ourselves, to others, and  to the world– even if the ultimate outcome is ReaperVille. We can make the world easier for future generations, or more beautiful. Or, if we’re that sort of person,  we can opt to make things worse.  If you take a particularly grim view, we change things  by just dying and becoming fertilizer and helping the grass grow.

“I don’t know” and “I don’t care” make a difference, too.  Knowing stuff results in changing what we do/what we know how to do. If you know about nutrition and eat a better diet, maybe you’ll live longer and have more children and contribute to overpopulating the world more heavily than you might have if you’d remained ignorant. (Sorry, grim world view again) Or maybe you’ll learn about agriculture, and through caring about your family or the world as a whole, be motivated to invent improved ways of feeding the world. Or maybe you’ll learn about cancer and save zillions of future lives. Or you’ll become an urban designer who finally figures out where to put all these people. Whatever. It’ll make a difference.

 

I don’t think you can not make a difference no matter how hard you try not to know or care. The not knowing and not caring also have an impact.

 

Will anything any of us do change the fact that we are all bound for death? Nuh-uh.

Does that matter? Nope.

 

 

Know.

Care.

Make a difference.

 

 

 

 

Note To Self: Breathing Is Mandatory

I’m still alive but I’m barely breathing
Just praying to a God that I don’t believe in
–the Script

 

The barely breathing is my own damn fault, but it’s kind of a flawed design in my opinion. It’s easy enough to breath IN, but nothing really prompts you to breath back out again.

It makes for a cranky day when I forget. Just ask the people I work with.

 

 

Actually, don’t.

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