The older I get the more opinions I have (though I always try to hold opinions lightly). The older I get, the more I believe that there can, for me locally, exist truths. And, the older I get, the more I feel able to recognize echoes & whispers of truths in moments of intense feeling (of any valence). These ideas are typically not full truths - often there are defense mechanisms of my own and societal illusions at play as well. But over time they reveal themselves further.

And example: I could look in a mirror and be overwhelmed at my ugliness in comparison to Angelina Jolie. This would be an intense feeling containing very little truth and a lot of mass-media psyop.

I could alternately look in the mirror and appreciate my smile but take issue with my nose. This would contain some truth, and some psyop (internalization of commerically imposed beauty standards).

I could still alternately look in the mirror in full recognition of the weight the world places on whiteness & beauty etc. and see my own face outside of/in tension with that, and appreciate the beauty of each aspect. This would be a fuller truth, as it is aware of & has worked through the pressure points of its landscape.

A hypothesis-

(I wrote this alongside reading Simone Weil, hence the particularly inductive-reasoning form..)

Acting on truth (maybe) brings clarity. Clarity in any domain is like a tree. It can take a long time to grow. There is a lot of fear, confusion, defense mechanism, uncertainty to work through. Clarity in the domain of one’s own values around making the world a better place is of utmost importance - because greater clarity allows greater passage to action. Because clarity in different domains of oneself (maybe) allows the development of clarity in other aspects of the self, and (maybe) acting on truth brings clarity, it is important to act on what one feels and critically discerns as true in general.

To be clear I do not think ‘clarity’ or ‘truth’ are static things. There is always more to learn about the world, and I certainly hope my opinions change a great deal over the course of my life. By truth and clarity I mean locally to a moment and the momentary extent of one’s knowledge; in opposition to the sense of overwhelming uncertainty and vagueness one could choose to hold which (in my own experience) makes it very difficult to act.

For instance in the context of ‘activism’ - for a long time I felt confused and overwhelmed by ‘politics’ generally, and not sure how activism effected global systems, etc. Once I accepted it was important to me to better understand this, was in greater community, and took it upon myself to further learn and experiment, I felt like I was able to much more feel a sense of the alignment of different truths/values & clarity in my own beliefs, and thus participate.