Depth for Truth
Image by Ian Chen
Depth is a defense mechanism. One that is an off shoot of intellectualization, one that is meant to ward off and keep at bay any sign of mental and emotional discomfort.
It makes perfect sense to my mind, to keep asking questions when you don’t like the answer that you’re getting. We all do this, but I’ll use children as an example. A child wants something and someone comes along and says no, you can’t do that, you can’t go there, you can’t have this. At this point anyone, but especially a child, gets full of indignation.
Why can’t I go? Why can’t I have this or that?
Because you can’t, or, worse than that, Because I said so. That’s the usual response, which speaks to the fact that some things are too complicated to explain, but mostly is about the self-righteous indignation adults have about children having the nerve to even ask them to reveal their motives. It won’t happen, and children are experienced and observant enough to know that, which makes their questioning disingenuous, but not ineffective. Questions serve multiple purposes. They can illuminate the path towards truth, or they can be the means through which we contest reality.
Again, everyone does this, uses questions in this way. Most of us, when faced with difficult realities, ones that we cannot evade or attack, tend to question the validity of them. I don’t begrudge the fact. Reality is certainly a difficult predicament that takes time to adjust oneself to, more time than some of us will ever have, but fortunately the task doesn’t always require that much of us.
It is a mistake to assume that you must plume the depths of your heart and mind to find the truth because the truth is often visible right there on the surface, in plain view. Many times in life it either is or it isn’t. Trying to be profound and come up with complicated explanations for why things aren’t going your way is a method of trying to soften the inevitable blows of life. It might be useful, but it’s not particularly effective if one’s goal is learn how to tolerate difficult situations in life. Self-awareness is not necessarily about sinking into the depths, endlessly asking yourself why you feel the way you do, and having more to find might in the end only provide excitement without further clarity. Sometimes it takes courage to stay on the surface and take things as they are, to go forward instead of going down, moving towards one’s challenges instead of away from them. You make progress not only by learning how to look for and find the truth, but also by increasing your capacity to tolerate it.