The truth doesn’t exist. It isn’t something out there that you can capture or plant your flag on. For vacation I went to visit The Truth. It was amazing! (But so touristy.) I plaster my fb page with selfies: me at The Truth. I drive down the street with I love the Truth on the rear end of my car.

But The Truth is inaccessible to mere man. With observation towers only about six feet high and a breadth the length of out-stretched arms, we are condemned to study life through our unique peek hole. Every man stands with his face squished against the boundary between his physical form and what lies beyond, desperately looking for meaning through a crack in the fence. It is in the nature of man to search for the whole truth and nothing but the truth and it is his condition to discover only one truth, nothing but his own truth.

So when someone says ‘in my opinion’ you listen politely (but roll your eyes to the ceiling when he isn’t looking). ‘I think’ might be received with a stifled yawn and fixed blank eyes as you desperately pretend to care. ‘I believe’ sounds a touch more profound so you may lean your head to one side as if weighing the merits of his thought process (but, of course, you still text your friend to confirm the lunch date).

‘I true’ is not grammatically possible. But if it were, it would just be like saying ‘the way I see it’ and you would be tolerant of him telling the truth knowing it is simply one mortal man’s miniscule opinion as to what actually happens upon death do us part. To each his own. Actually the problem with the word true or truth is that the subject, the humble thinker, that little guy filled with prejudice and doubt, the infamous capital I with his eyeball screwed into a hole in a wall, has to be scratched from the sentence. My opinion turns into: The truth is. Suddenly you are all ears as your eyes lock swords with this self-proclaimed holder of The Truth.

Ever since the birth of man we’ve been bickering (and blowing each other up) over the truth of our origins. But as long as we are in this human contraption our understanding of the mystery of life can never be more than an opinion, an educated guess, or simply a hunch. Animals and plants fight for survival but they don’t seem to kill each other because of differing thoughts on life after decay.

So believe it and relax. You are right. Find that flicker of meaning through the key hole of your life and say it is so. It is true… for you. And there is no need to huff and puff when you hear what he says. It is his truth… nothing but his own truth.