Absolute truth, or...

Truths in all their glory -

We all know that I greatly enjoy A.Word.A.Day, but I have become even more addicted to the one-liners at the end of the postings.

Today’s should really be allowed to stand on its own, but we also all know that I won’t let it sink into the unacknowledged.

An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may. -William Hazlitt, essayist (1778-1830)

Using this it would be very entertaining to “interpret” postings by my friends and acquaintances on Facebook.  For every conservative graph, posting or remark there exists the opposite “truth” from the liberals and vice versa. Who tells the “truth”? And are they honest or vain? I could really get in hot water with this particular subject.

 

As for myself: graffiti can be as profound as any philosopher and I'd love to meet the artist who did the following. My opinion exactly!

Graffiti at the bus stop

"The only absolute truth is that there is none"

Graffiti can be uplifting

Or there’s an exception to every rule.

Normally I am the first to complain about the graffiti that seems to cover any available space or blank wall here in Geneva.

However, one, up in my village, has had me thinking over the months that it has been on an electrical box where I tend to park every morning near the post office and bakery where I have my coffee.

It doesn’t proclaim (as is usually the case) “Be Happy”, nor exhort me to happiness: no frills, nothing but a crudely handwritten phrase requesting, nay perhaps supplicating me:

“Please be happy”.

Was it written by an elementary school child; a troubled teen; a frustrated young adult? I will probably never know – and can only hope that whoever wrote it has been able to find happiness for his or her self, that whatever burden led them to supplicate passersby to “please” be happy has since resolved itself.

If only I could let them know that his/her plea found an echo in my mind and that each day when faced with this request, I do stop and think and try to be happy.