Jonathan Dodd‘s latest column. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
One day The Truth decided to place a representation of itself in the sky, in the shape of a cloud. The Truth was fed up with being misrepresented by the men below. Now, at last, thought The Truth, people will see me for what I am.
The cloud that was The Truth stayed there up in the sky all day, and was seen by people all over the world.
The Truth looked exactly like it should
Many were glad, because The Truth looked exactly like it should, and they were filled with joy, because this meant that they were living their lives exactly the way they should, and they became more certain that they should continue on the path they had chosen.
These people continued to be very good examples of Christianity, and Buddhism, and Hinduism, and Zoroastrianism, and Atheism, and Pacifism, and Patriotism, and Conservatism, and Liberalism, and Anarchism, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Scientology, and Reason, and Republicanism, and all the other isms and ologies and variations thereof into which people split themselves.
None of these appreciated the irony that everyone else believed as surely that they had the exclusive vision of The Truth as they did, and that each group believed that all the other groups were deluded to think this.
To continue fighting and killing
Some of these groups believed that The Truth was telling them to continue fighting and killing members of certain other groups, and they continued to do this with renewed enthusiasm.
Some people saw The Truth and felt anger and disillusion, because The Truth didn’t look anything like the things they thought they had believed. A few of these moved from one group to another, but many clung to their previous beliefs because they had invested so much and were too afraid to admit that they knew they were wrong.
The fervour of new converts
Some were so astonished by the shining vision they saw in the sky, when they saw The Truth, that they immediately dedicated their lives to a completely new task, filled with the fervour of new converts, and left all their old certainties behind to become missionaries, or protesters, or joined NGOs and went to work in third world countries, or joined militias to go and fight in third world countries.
Many never even noticed The Truth up there in the sky. Some couldn’t see anything up there because of the air pollution, and some spent their lives or their days underground, and some were simply unable to lift their gaze from the ground at their feet.
The Truth hadn’t asked their permission to be up there
One large organisation became irate that The Truth hadn’t asked their permission to be up there, and plainly wasn’t on-message, or, even worse, had been put there in a sneaky way by a competing organisation, and they sought ways to remove The Truth from the sky. They expended a lot of resources and technology and money on these efforts, with questionable results.
Another large group of people were determined to combat this bad propaganda, so they sought to create their own cloud up there, that would show their beliefs better and in a more enticing way than The Truth. This group spent an equal amount of time and trouble trying to project images up there which were at least as good and clever as their rivals.
Yet more people thought that it was a mistake of The Truth not to appear in the colours of their flag, so they sent a lot of aeroplanes up there and tried to dye The Truth with the correct colours. There were other groups who attempted to darken the whole sky, because they didn’t like what they saw up there.
Representations of The Truth
The appearance of The Truth caused a lot of demonstrations and processions and riots which resulted in many dented heads and broken banners. Representations of The Truth appeared as slogans on walls all over the world. Fashions representing The Truth became enormously popular, and new religions and political parties and mass movements sprung up everywhere.
Writers and artists and musicians sought to perfect their vision of The Truth in as perfect and universal way as they possibly could. Some became extremely rich and famous, but most of them remained poor and embittered.
A rare display of unity
There were many people who refused to acknowledge that The Truth had appeared in the sky at all. They dared to suggest that this was just another cloud, and most of these became exiles or were attacked by hordes of followers of The Truth in a rare display of unity, because the only thing a believer hates more than the believer in a rival creed than someone who doesn’t believe in anything.
One little girl saw The Truth and liked it. She drew a picture of it, up in the blue sky, above a little box house with four windows and a door, with a chimney puffing fluffy smoke and flowers in the garden, with lovely but unrealistic representations of herself and her parents and her siblings and the family pets. Her mother liked the picture, and stuck it on the fridge door.
The Truth dispersed itself at the end of the day and decided to try again tomorrow.
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
Image: Hababoon under CC BY 2.0
Image: Public Domain
Image: theisraelproject under CC BY 2.0
Image: Public Domain
Image: Mbz1 under CC BY 2.0
Image: BAJ under CC BY 2.0
