I remember taking the EST training some 21 years ago. One of the diagrams they put on the board was what they called the Truth Funnel, or something like that. It was at least one person, if not more people, blah, blah, blahhing into a funnel which was then siphoned for the Truth Machine. There was an output device at the bottom of the machine, after it had regurgitated and distilled out the truth, and there was one drop of truth that came out of the bottom.
It appears to me, that is an appropriate representation of 99% of all communication.
Regardless of whether it is on the political level, the corporate level, the various gradations of personal relationship levels, or so forth: the truth is that the truth is in short supply.
I’ve been watching American Idol, and there is no question in my mind, that Simon’s communication style is obnoxious, unnecessarily offensive, and unnecessarily inappropriate.
On the other hand, there is no question, after watching him for a dozen or so episodes, that what he offers is “truth”. He doesn’t sugar coat. Unfortunately, at times, he actually attempts to dramatize the truth to the negative. But the bottom line is that Simon, not unlike Tony Soprano, tells you exactly how it is at any particular moment in time.
Is that a bad thing?
It appears to me, as an avid reader of some three newspapers a day – The Orlando Sentinel, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today – that the one thing we are missing in the Country is truthful communication at any level. Whether I am listening to a speech, observing a talk, engaging in a conversation with neighbors, reading major periodicals, or engaging in office politics, the one thing I am absolutely confident is missing is a commitment to communicate truth.
I don’t espouse insensitive declarations of truth. But I do commit to dedicated explorations of and communications about truth, relative and absolute.
The one commodity which is missing in communication today is truth. Are you doing your share to contribute to the truth, or to obfuscate it?
And truth, in the hands and words of so many people, represents nothing more than their agenda, with which they take abundant liberties.