Truth is a diamond. Opinion is in the bargain bin.
Truth can’t be mass produced. It doesn’t exist on a magazine cover, nor is it in the bold red text scrolling across my television screen.
The truth is a raw diamond, lying quietly in a sea bed, under a secure cover of sand and earth.
To arrive at it, we must take a long journey down into the belly of our worlds, diving deeply into dark waters and breaking into bedrock, where unexpected certainty, brilliance and clarity reside.
Up here in the light blue ether, we live in a world full of shiny objects, of which we might be prudent to be very wary. Unlike diamonds which are unrecognizable at first pass, the bedazzled is easy to come by.
Opinions are those shiny objects, in a way. They are abundant in our echo chambers and handed out freely by charismatic pundits. We borrow them for a minute, try them on, and then try to make them our own.
Only they aren’t ours, really. They are simply derivatives like carbon copies, each iteration less refined than the last.
With social media and infinite news cycles, we are encouraged at every millisecond to grab opinions so we can rent-to-own them. They are in the bargain bin, labeled as facts.
And those who profit from peddling opinions just love this, because it’s exciting when those with opposing opinions clamor and bang and erupt into gladiatorial jousts . We can’t look away, as they battle with weaponry that’s been leased from those very profiteers.
Truth, on the other hand, is inconspicuous and doesn’t come to fight, although we will certainly have to work up beads of sweat on our upper lips and harness the fight within ourselves in order to uncover it, and perhaps we will fight to find it for entire lifetimes.
It takes all our courage and grit to seek out the less seductive. It also takes well-trained eyes and discerning senses to get closer and closer to truth — to notice the subtlety of our unique lived experiences, to contemplate nuance in the story of someone who has very little in common with us, and to listen to the whispers of nature.
Diamonds aren’t always born classical beauties, so when we finally decide to pursue an earnest search for them, we mustn’t be too distracted by the glittery.
I wonder the reason truth is rare and can appear dull at first sight — it may be because we humans can only handle a little at a time, as once the rough crystal becomes multi-faceted and polished, it will dazzle such that we are blinded by the light.
