30 May 1958

30 May 1958

Truth hurts – it is very painful. One who has built up a structure of false values is hurt badly when truth tumbles his house of cards. If the learning process is not completely atrophied, time heals the hurt and one becomes a little more understanding as one learns to live with truth. One is a better person for it.

The pain of truth can be compared with any physical defect, or infection, that must be ripened and cut open. The pain of a carbuncle ripening must be dreadful. But it opens, time heals, and the person having the carbuncle knows then what the pain of a carbuncle is. He has a larger understanding.

In the physical realm of pain, the pain process is more or less an involuntary process. However, when it comes to false ideals, false values, the process is much more subtle, difficult to sift out, but as painful as physical pain.

One hates to be hurt, either physically or egotistically (mentally). Nevertheless, a gangrene leg must be cut off to save a life. I wonder if jolts of truth are necessary to save a life also. One must exercise care however. Wasted on a hopeless case merely [it] makes the human animal dangerous – I still think Copernicus was wiser than Galileo.

Truth, even when denied, will out. (As Eddy said, “Lies have short legs.”)

  1. S.

With dangerous human animals it pays to be cautious (a la Copernicus). With gentle folks – who are trying to find their way, just as with physical pain, anesthetics make the pain easier. So, with mental anguish – although one has to hurt to cure, the pain should be eased as much as possible, without endangering the cure.

On the other hand, there are those [about whom] one says: “Where there is no sense, there is no feeling.” (pertaining primarily to personality).