Truth

I've been reading a book on my recently acquired Kindle, titled, The Druid of Harley Street: The Spiritual Psychology of E. Graham Howe, by E. Graham Howe and William Stranger.

It is a selection of excerpts from essays and books written by the British psychologist E. Graham Howe.

I have been interested in Howe's writing since I first came across a reference to him some fifteen years ago while I was at university, in an essay by Henry Miller, called, The Wisdom of the Heart.

Chapter 9, The Wheel and the Road, begins thus:

Truth is not a plain tale. It cannot be told simply, as if it were in a straight line, with a beginning and an end, word for word, once and for all. It is too subtle, too manifold and too self-contradictory for that. Like hunters after our prey, we can have a shot at it with a quick-fire of words, and when we miss, shoot at it again from a different direction. Then, either all our shots must miss, or, if we hit it, we shall do injury to the truth, merely wounding it by our injustice. Then we must try again, but more as poets do, to catch it in a picture, and see a fleeting glimpse of it as it disappears like water through a sieve. In truth, the truth cannot caught or held nor simply told, because it is more subtle than the mind can see.

It has been my experience that all truth has at its core a paradox. A conflict. An opposition. If this is the nature of truth, and therefore the nature of life, it is little wonder then that living can be a confusing business. There is some solace, I find though, in knowing that it is meant to be thus.

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If you found this interesting, please think about purchasing my novel: Seventeen Summers.