On the one hand, we value truth highly. We want true friends, reliable companions who stick with us through thick and thin. We respect truth-tellers whose words are commensurate with the way things are. We strive to be true to ourselves by linking inner being with outer action. We puncture pretenses with a pithy, “Get real.” At the same time, the pursuit of truth can be exhausting. A never-ending existential battle continually rages between what is and what seems to be. Just as true-or-false questions bedevil test-taking students, every person alive is confronted with a constant and ever-changing stream of problems that demand correct answers. What sort of food is best for my health? Which investment strategy is going to make me financially secure? Where did I put my car keys? When is the proper time to plant my vegetable garden? If there were no right answer to such questions we wouldn’t worry about being wrong. So the very existence of truth (or at least its assumed existence) creates a continual tension between what I know and what can be known.
