POEME:: 4AwfulTruths: Forget Everything I Said

4AwfulTruths: Forget Everything I Said

He said:
"I have the Truth".
He said it a few times more.

It morphed into:
"I alone have the Truth".
Then,
he said it again, a few more times.

It became:
"I own the Truth".

Many heard him.
Most laughed.
But he kept saying it.
Then one day,
another said: "I believe you".

Now,
both 'owned' the Truth.

Some more agreed: "We believe you".
Many, still laughed at them.

But they kept saying: "We own the Truth".
Upon hearing them, time and again, many more joined.
Many more said: "We own the Truth".
Now,
only a few laughed at them.
One of them laughed a bit too loudly.

They killed her.
No one laughed.
Those who owned the Truth, said:
"All is fair in the service of the Truth".

Some of the others became angry.

The two sides fought.
They fought again.
And again.
And again and again.

Who won?
The ones who thought they owned the Truth.
Not because they actually owned the Truth.
No one knows who owned the Truth.
Or, if the Truth was 'ownable'.
Or even,
if the Truth was 'knowable'.

Yet,
the believers believed it.
And, the disbelievers disbelieved it.
The believers won.
And the disbelievers turned believers.
They loved their skin far too much.
The believers ruled.
The belief ruled.

Why?

Because fiction
has greater power over human minds
than the absence of that fiction.
Fiction gives confidence to the believer.

Confidence kills.

Nazis kill Jews.
And many more.
Jews kill Islamists.
And many more.
Islamists kill Kafirs.
Which includes everyone other than the killers' brand of Islamists.
Cow-savers kill Muslims,
confident that they are all Islamists.
Muslims (and most non-cow-believers) kill cows.
All (or almost all) kill chicken.
All (actually all) kill habitats,
which kills non-humans.
And then, humans.
Homo sapiens kill Homo sapiens.
In wars, genocides, massacres,
slavery, manufactured famines, other-hate.
Politics, Mismanagement, Religion.
Not to mention,
women, who drink from their water.
Homo sapiens kill Dodos, Mastodons,
Homo neanderthalensis, Homo erectus,  Homo floresiensis,
Homo sexuals.

Confidence kills.

Fiction gives confidence to the believer.
Because fiction
has greater power over human minds
than the absence of that fiction.

The more you believe a fiction,
the more confident you become.
The more power it gives you.
The more you kill.

The more you kill,
anyone who disagrees with you.

Why?
Because your mind knows that
what you believe most fervently,
is actually a fiction.
And does not want you to know what it knows.
It speaks the Language of Truth to itself.
For all natural phenomena speak that.
And only that.
But it, your mind
speaks the Language of Fiction to H sapiens.
For all H sapiens speak that.
For all H sapiens speak only that.

Also,
because your mind does not want to die.
And if it talks to you
in a non-fictive language,
you will lose your confidence.

And then,
you will lose your power.

H sapiens became
the undisputed emperors of this Earth
upon the coattails of their
fictive cognitive power:
the power to create an owned truth;
a mass subjective truth.
A mass earnestly-believed delusion.
That power will be lost.

Our empire,
our power, our survival
is all built upon our ability,
our minds' ability
to speak convincing fiction;
to delude ourselves into believing, any convenient fiction.
To the extent of finding it,
our owned Truth.

Our individual minds,
our collective mind
lies to us,
so that it can help us survive long.
And then,
survive our death.

The Truth does not rule the human world.
Lies do.

If it were not so,
scientists would be emperors.
But no great emperor
has ever been a good scientist.
But always,
a story-teller, par-excellence.

Forget everything I said.

-

(c) owais. Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed).