Making sense since 1984.
  • Home
  • CV
  • I See Living People
  • Maailmanpuolustusvoimat
  • REAL LEADERSHIP GAP
  • Start with what

Prologue: My love affair with the truth

3/10/2013

3 Comments

 

On what made me start writing this blog.

I’m having an affair.

So far it has cost me much of my sanity, my former map of the world, and my job. (Or, in the name of honesty, let me put it more precisely: The career I was trying to want.)

It has also cost me some relationships. I understand, how could it not. What I am experiencing can be a lot to take, even for the observer.

It almost cost me my marriage, too. However, to my gratifying surprise, the three of us are now learning to get along. I am hopeful about the future.

You may be horrified to read this. But the thing is, I’m in love. And there’s no turning back.

As you may guess: In exchange for all these things, my affair has given me quite a bit. I have gained new friends: Dialogue Beyond Bullshit, Peace Of Mind and Sense Of Direction to name a few. Also my relationships with many human beings have been lifted to a whole new level. I am very lucky, and very grateful.
Picture
Latest at this point you must be furious with me not defining what I mean with “the truth”. I mean pretty much the same thing as the dictionary does: Truth is the state of being the case. However, it is the last thing we typically accept as being the case. If we did, things like politics, business and parenthood would be totally different – maybe a bit more painful, but definitely more productive.

As you may read from my little introductory story above, we are often more familiar with what the truth is not. Why is that? There are many reasons behind this, but I find the most significant one to be: We are afraid we couldn’t really cope with it. We put so much energy in this life into developing mechanisms to help us escape from reality – for example, we tell ourselves stories about how we are too weak/small/insignificant to do what we really want to do; we exercise like crazy and mask ourselves with the most creative creams, make-up and even surgery to kid ourselves from the fact that our bodies are mortal; we go out of our way to prove that we are not to blame for our unsatisfying, crappy everyday life. It is quite a crisis for the ego to admit that actually, we are better off without these little mechanisms that consume most of our energy on a daily basis.

But back to my affair. Let me tell you a little about how we met. I first got to know Truth when I was born. I don’t know when that was, but I have a feeling it was quite a long time ago. It wasn’t love at first sight. Truth wasn’t exactly the kind of partner I thought I would end up with. To prove my expectations right, for many years I kept looking for a more good-looking and more suitable partner. However, as it turned out, and as it often does in romantic stories, I had the right one beside me all my life. I guess if this were now a wedding scene in a great movie, I would be tempted to say something as cheesy as: “On some level, I always knew.”

But the truth is: I didn’t. I thought the voice inside me, my intuition, was occasionally a handy tutor – but more often than not, an outright distraction. I guess this is why we spend so much energy escaping Truth: It is much easier to make decisions that influence many people (with completely different backgrounds, positions and needs) when you don’t have a clue of all that complexity. It is very tempting to think there is a simple textbook answer that can be learned – without having to go inside yourself searching for the answer. I guess everyone dreams of it at some point: Once it’s learned, you know what to do. Always. Righteousness guaranteed. Great!

(This is what much of our society is based on: Doctors learn a pattern of routines, which can be matched with the corresponding problem. Once they’re done, they’re done. The test is not whether the initial problem was solved – for example, the root cause behind a patient’s mysterious stomach pains resolved.  But the test is: whether what was supposed to be done was done. This brings us a great sense of security and predictability. The only handicap is that these emotions are based on illusions – not reality.)

So now I have come clean. I have outed myself as a lover of Truth. I guess we are now beyond the point of chitchat, so let me ask you: Are you friends with my lover?

If you share my curiosity towards what life can look like if we ditch the old theatrical mannerism, do read on. All you need is your curiosity. And some readiness to laugh at life, me, yourself, and all the funny things we do. This is my adventure. I invite you to join me.
3 Comments
Tuuli
19/10/2013 07:22:16 am

For a medical student this touches a chord. Indeed, our sense of capability and accomplishment to a large extent hinges on learning established routines and repeating them, hopefully with brilliance. As doctors, to be of any use at all, we need to know the "facts" (the anatomy of the coronary arteries, the bacteria known to cause pneumonia, the clinical signs of pulmonary embolism). But where the facts end, begins the quest for the truth you're after (the truth behind the stomach aches). And that's the scary part, at least for a mind trained for flawlessness and control, because it calls for letting go and it calls for Imagination..
Thanks for coming out with this!

Reply
Annu
22/10/2013 12:38:16 pm

Thanks Tuuli!

Great to hear personal thoughts about this from a doctor-to-be.

However, we must also remember not to be too hard on ourselves: The quest for the truth does not need to be scary and full of pressure. It can also be liberating - as one of the truths I've managed to find so far is that we are all imperfect, and at the same time valuable beyond measure as such. As always in life, there is room for mistakes - that's how we learn.

All the best to you. I'm sure you will be a wonderful doctor!

Reply
Tuomas link
28/10/2013 06:10:45 am

You're writing about such a complex subject in such a comprehensible manner and through such a great metaphor. I admire your skill in this to the extent that I actually had to remind myself that I can't compare my chapter 1 to your chapter 20.

Aside the praise, I'm there with you about how we learn and live theatrical mannerisms as if they were the truth while knowing that it's merely a way to detach from reality. Or are we even aware of this? I wonder to what extent this is necessary to us as humans and if there's ever going to be a way around it. After all, we live in a system where power is in the norms and rules as otherwise there would be few solutions to problems. I know that it helps to understand and to become an expert in the norms as you can only master the game when you know its rules.

And then, different professions have each their own solutions to the same problem. How is one able to learn the facts of one's trade and be able to be human at the same time, not detaching the symptoms from the whole as "facts" into a calculable equation? How can we learn across professions, while each practitioner's credibility is at the line? Takes a lot of courage and vulnerability, and I'm not sure we can expect that from others.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Annu. Institutional entrepreneur, writer, ex-management consultant, poet, documentary film maker, musician, full-time daydreamer, and ally of the truth from Helsinki, Finland.

    Picture

    Published posts

    Introduction: What is this blog about?

    Prologue: My love affair with the truth


    Productivity 2.0: Why looking like a busy little very important squirrel isn't going to save the world

    Dreaming 2.0: From princess/rock star fantasies to real adult dreaming

    The S word: Why the current leadership paradigm isn’t fulfilling our hunger for direction

    The race to misunderstanding: Why genuine comprehension is becoming endangered

    If you want to receive a notification when I publish a new post, sign up here:

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    RSS Feed

© Annu Nieminen 2017