What Is Truth?

 Truth is malleable. It can be used for many purposes. Of the many kinds of truth, I see three. The first is "truth" and it's the most flexible one. The second is "the whole truth" and its scope is very wide and rather cumbersome because sometimes only parts of it are used while others stay hidden away. The third and least used truth, is the "bare truth". Quotation marks aside, the latter, the bare truth,  is the most difficult one both to say or use. It's not pretty and it's brutal at times and it's embarrassing and unpopular and hated and loved and respected and disrespected. The descriptions can go on and on. Bare truth tells it "like it is" with no decoration or side lies or pandering or colouring or affectation or politics.  It is very seldom used by most people unless only with those closest and those who will keep it close. It is almost never used by the media mostly because it is not popular and sometimes it is illegal. But it doesn't go away. It's a kind of unspoken truth not just because it is illegal to speak it, but also because it's the hardest one to use and/or admit. It is often thought but not spoken, felt and not used. Everyone knows it's there and what it is and why it must not be said. But it remains. How does one get to the bare truth when it needs to be spoken but is tidily set aside and its cohorts, the simple truth or the whole truth are used instead? Asking the most difficult of the journalistic Ws is WHY. "Why" has all the answers but again, the answers can be manipulated and very often are. It is a strange fact that we all know the bare truth but we dare not speak it because the legal and social and popular "axe" will fall and when it does, there are consequences for speaking the bare truth that everyone knows. More and more, truth is becoming a legal form in our society. Even asking the question "why" could be incorrect and sometimes even illegal. The term "politically correct" doesn't mean that the truth is not true. It means that you cannot speak it for fear of being told it isn't the truth. Or perhaps its truth is not legal to speak even though it's true.  It seems that truth as it once was, is no longer truth at all. It is so bent and shaped and used and misinterpreted that it is no longer truth. Truth is a sham, a loose dangling thing that swings in whatever way the wind is blowing at the time. What is called "truth" is only part of it, not all or the whole truth but only a bit that works for whatever job the teller wants it used for. Truth is a tool that can shape and mold and change however the one using it, wishes it to work. So how do we get to the truth, the whole truth, the bare truth. Since we all know the bare truth that is illegal, it must stay inside and live imprisoned and only be aired when it is safe and where it is safe, and with whom it is safe. Bare truth has become the underground truth. Therein lies a danger of it not being spoken. Today it must not be spoken and it is not welcome. But remains imprisoned in the minds. We all know it and see it, just as we do  the great ape in the zoo, that stares back at us wanting to be set free, but lives behind the glass wall, waiting.