What if we don't want to know the truth?

When I was nineteen, one of my best friends, a guy who I really liked and admired, said to me, "You know, for somebody as perceptive as you are, you sure can be shallow." Hearing him say this felt like a snakebite to the heart.

It hurt so bad because something in me knew it was so true. I was just cruising, trying to squeeze as much fun out of life as I could. Didn't care that much about using people along the way. Just wanted to keep the fun coming.

Whatever that something was, the something that knew, it was profound and persistent and somehow undeniable.

Overnight I became lost, disoriented, unsure, tentative.

And miserable.

Looking back, William Stafford's poem, The Way It Is, comes to mind:

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change.  But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

Only at that time, this thread-following William Stafford wrote about was something I didn't understand at all--even though this was the moment I began to consciously follow the thread. 

I don't think there's any one name for the thread. But it has something to do with recognizing and owning what's true. And at that time, what the truth did for me was hurt.

Why follow that?

Who can say? 

Maybe it's a certain grace that comes with pain--that pain somehow marks the place where healing is not only necessary but possible.

Maybe what Jesus said about truth is carried somewhere in our DNA, maybe even in our reptile brains: "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." Maybe it's just dirt level basic--recognizing how and working with the way things are.