Briefly

I’d like to write a modern version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” — a more cynical one — with a realistic ending for today’s audience. In this new version, the little boy points out on social media that the emperor is naked but nobody listens to him. Instead, everybody keeps posting grander and grander praise for the emperor’s non-existent clothes. The cognitive dissonance makes the people unable to hear the child who tells them the truth, because they’re getting social media praise — likes and so forth — for their lies. The confused child eventually feels so defeated that he shuts up and walks away. He’s so hurt and disappointed by this that he withdraws from the world and spends years in therapy, trying to figure out whether the rest of the world is crazy or if he’s the crazy one. Ever since I was a child, I wanted to be that little boy, but few want to hear the truth today. Either I’m crazy or else our culture has gone insane.

More and more of what I hear and read today seems like complete nonsense. Even things which most people treat as great wisdom seems ridiculous and shallow to me. Then when I run across ideas and information which seem to be exciting and potentially life-changing to me, I find that most other people’s eyes glaze over when I try to share those things. My uneasiness about this isn’t about politics or ideology or religion. It’s not about one particular interest group or another. It’s something far more fundamental. It seems to be a difference in how we view the world and evaluate foundational information — how we process reason and truth. It feels as though the foundations of the Enlightenment have radically eroded and we’re descending into a new Dark Age in which the philosophical values I hold dear will largely be forgotten. The Western Civilization which has given us such great gifts is in jeopardy — and I fear the things we are proud of today will soon lie in ruins, as has been the fate of so many other great civilizations which have died.

When I learned to write, my words were speaking purely from my head. I was a smart kid and I thought I knew everything. I learned to write well enough to express my ideas. Then I learned to write factual news and sports and features in a style which newspapers wanted. But something odd eventually happened. About seven or eight years ago, I learned to be vulnerable and open — and the words I wrote started coming from my heart instead. That was transformative for me. But while the head is satisfied to make a point strongly one time and move on, the heart needs to keep speaking, over and over, as its emotional depth runs over. Because of this, I constantly find my heart needing to express love and longing and hope and other things, but I find that I’ve said these things before — and I can’t imagine someone wants to hear them again. Then I remember the words to a beautiful song by Terry Scott Taylor about speaking truth from the heart. He wrote, “Love is a question mark. Life’s in a shadow box. God hides himself sometimes inside a paradox. And there may not ever be anything here new to say, but I’m fond of finding words that say it in a different way.” My heart overflows with love and need and longing, and I have no choice but to keep finding new ways to express what my heart needs to say. Again and again. Because it never goes away.