Which religion is the right one?
How do you raise up a child?
In what way should you study a language?
What does “healthy eating” mean?
And if you think I’ve asked the most trivial difficult questions…
What day is today?
What’s the time?
The world can’t answer unanimously even these two simple questions.
What’s this urge of ours, then, towards truth and isn’t it hopeless?
There is no truth. That’s my truth. And to not negate this term using itself, let me call my truth a story. Let me call all truths stories.
And then let me bow to all stories that exist and that will exist and under which there’s someone’s signature.
I bow not to Khan Asparukh* or Liberator King* but to the man who wrote about their achievements.
I bow not to the Christian god but to the apostles who told us about him in their gospels.
Why?
Because what I value is authorship. Authorship is a guarantee for un-truthfulness. Authorship is an in-authenticity certificate. And the artwork is just a point of view. It doesn’t pretend to be truth.
I believe selectively. I read quotes by some people and by others and I only believe those that I like. Why? Because there is no truth anyway. When there is no truth we can at least choose a point of view. When there is no truth, there is no war. There are only arguments. “You think so and I don’t.” “All right, I see, let’s not talk about this. Do you like coffee?” “Yes.” “How about we drink some coffee?” “OK.”
And that’s it.
Truth is a crutch. Something to lean on. The story is freedom. Sometimes a limping one but dependent on nothing. Truth is a way – the story is a crossroad. Truth commands – the story offers a choice. Truth is eyes – the story is a feeling.
When you don’t believe in truth you don’t have strong principles. You can change your behaviour any minute. You have no security. There’s no one to tell you, “Yes, that is right.” And yet I feel that being lost in the darkness of freedom is a better choice than following the only way that exists and that is brightly lit.
In order to live with stories instead of truth you need to have an open heart and an open mind. You need to learn how to listen. To put yourself in the other’s shoes, just like you identify with a character in a book, and to come out of that role easily, just like you close a book and go on with your life.
When you live with stories instead of truth the world becomes an amazing library. Live with the “truth” and learn everything about what you believe in. Discard everything else. Live with the stories and take a little bit from everything. Everyone has a choice.
Everything that you read here is right.
Antonia Ivanova
*It is believed that Khan Asparukh founded the First Bulgarian Empire in 681.
*Liberator King is a name Bulgarian people gave to Еmperor Alexander II of Russia.
a blog about (making sense of) life 