Asatru Folk Assembly - The Truth is Out There...or at least Part 1 is

00:00:00.000 and cliff tell us what truth means to you what does truth mean to me um well as i mentioned

00:00:16.200 i kind of assume it's the default but i suppose it's not truth is

00:00:20.160 i guess there's there's honesty and then there's truth right honesty is telling the truth

00:00:29.900 And that's a lot easier to define. It's, you know, not lying, not manipulating people through subterfuge anyway, you know, encouraging people. That's fine.

00:00:42.540 Um, but truth itself, um, it's, it's what is and, and is not changeable.

00:00:58.280 Um, you know, we can, we can use our will to shape the world, but truth is all of that

00:01:07.940 that we either cannot change or it's the way things are now.

00:01:12.540 you know that um you know the the sky is blue is is a truth right um it's not true everywhere

00:01:22.560 and maybe not here forever but the sky is blue is is obviously a true statement on on earth at

00:01:30.440 midgard um gosh i guess i should have thought of that more before i uh i came on but it's you know

00:01:41.920 the the unchangeable facts or laws or or essence of of nature or or being

00:01:54.880 well you know we're picking up on some of the side chat over here and one of the things that's

00:02:00.240 interesting is truth is so fundamental it's hard to when you try to get to etymology and you try

00:02:08.160 to get to definitions you have to use language to describe those words and there's certain

00:02:14.480 core values that don't really it's hard to imagine a root from them or something that predates them

00:02:21.920 to define them truth is perhaps the most basic element of as somebody put in the side of

00:02:28.400 conforming to reality um one thing that i think is very fundamental about uh as far as the value of

00:02:36.480 truth is especially in today's world where there's such a high uh social value on not offending and

00:02:48.000 on not triggering anybody if you don't have a uh an honest assessment of where you are and

00:02:56.240 how reality is you can't ever begin to make that more to your liking you can't change your

00:03:03.520 circumstances or change yourself unless you have a an accurate gauge of where you currently are

00:03:11.600 and you know where you want to go and so i think it's it's fundamental and i like that it's you

00:03:16.560 know early on in our list of of virtues is it's it's necessary to proceed from a place of truth

00:03:23.840 and the other thing that our ancestors certainly valued about truth and we still answer uh value

00:03:29.440 today and it's one of the reasons that i that i value my friendship with you cliff so much

00:03:34.960 is it's hard to have a relationship that's meaningful if there's not truth exchanged

00:03:43.200 i've seen this in uh just in my life growing up my mom was always she's always been one of those

00:03:50.720 people that smiles and nods and says everything's fine and her relationships with people is always

00:03:58.720 very very surface level because she learned the skill of fundamentally basing everything on

00:04:06.880 niceties and white lies and i don't say that in any way to be insulting of my mother there's a

00:04:12.560 generation of people that that's just the way you do things is tell people what they want to hear

00:04:19.360 and you don't air any kind of dirty laundry and you don't uh you know you behave a certain way

00:04:26.000 that's on the surface and i've watched it really limit the deep friendships and deep relationships

00:04:32.240 that she had in her life and it's kind of a important lesson i learned that way true frith

00:04:38.480 and uh beyond that friendship is is based so much on on being able to count on getting

00:04:44.400 getting honest information and honest feedback be it verbal or emotional from the people that you

00:04:50.240 interact with so i have a question come up from nick is there an esoteric aspect to truth

00:05:03.600 cliff what are your thoughts

00:05:07.440 well i think so yes um i i actually well matt was talking for a minute there i

00:05:14.320 i wasn't really satisfied with you know my my definition of truth and so i went and i i

00:05:22.000 wiktionary it because wiktionary is you know the true facts of the universe right and um

00:05:29.200 it the word truth comes from proto-indo-european i don't know if i'm going to say this right but

00:05:35.200 drew which means tree which comes from deru which means firm or solid so it actually is a lot closer

00:05:43.840 to what i was saying then i then i guess i gave myself credit for um it you know it's the

00:05:51.680 the hard facts you know the

00:05:57.920 the concrete matter of things and um it's interesting that you asked the question

00:06:02.720 about the esoteric meaning of truth just after i looked that up because um you know we have a

00:06:09.440 drazil of the world tree and it's what the nine worlds are structured on what they're

00:06:16.240 what they're hanging on i think is how it's put and

00:06:22.880 the worlds you know they exist in in reality is one way to interpret that if the word truth

00:06:32.000 actually you know comes from tree from our our ancestors understanding of the universe you know

00:06:40.320 and it's not just our people that have this concept of a world tree of you know the axis monday it's

00:06:48.720 it's fundamental to

00:06:52.720 i mean i think all people's in the northern hemisphere actually it's a it's it's something

00:06:56.880 that's so fundamentally i'm going to say true you're not supposed to use the word that you're

00:07:01.520 trying to talk about when you're describing it but it's tough to do with this one but it's

00:07:06.080 it's fundamental to everything that um that that are that are that we can that we can observe um

00:07:15.440 and i think that a lot of our people's understanding of spirituality comes from

00:07:21.920 observing the stars from observing the trees from observing animals and just the way that the world

00:07:28.560 works um you know scientific observation doesn't make the gods it's not like we created them

00:07:37.680 because we i mean some people say that but it's not that we created thor because we needed a way

00:07:43.360 to explain thunder it's the other way around that we started to understand thor because we could see

00:07:47.680 thor in the world through thunder and lightning um but yeah i think there's an esoteric part to to

00:07:58.400 truth i mean it it's almost an upside down question i guess isn't esotericism all about

00:08:06.080 getting to truth almost that that's the tool to to find what is true and to best understand the world

00:08:16.400 you know both natural and supernatural as fully as one can

00:08:20.580 you know that's one of the things with esoterics is there is

00:08:27.020 there is useful esoterics and then there is masturbatory escapism esoterics and you know

00:08:41.400 i i often define that as basement wizardry often but very seriously amongst our people

00:08:48.200 one is based on truth one is based on better understanding the universe better understanding

00:08:55.880 your place in it and then working with that whether you like the answers you get or not

00:09:01.880 and the other is quite literally vent you know spending your time in the land of make-believe

00:09:09.400 diluting yourself with you know fluffy words that make you feel powerful when you in fact aren't

00:09:18.200 so i think it's kind of an important definer in esoterics one of the things um

00:09:28.760 and and we see this all around us to go with the tree analogy or the tree relationship

00:09:36.120 when we see the generation of people that we're watching come up now that aren't based in truth

00:09:43.880 but are based in wishful thinking and don't know what gender they are and you know disabilities

00:09:51.320 aren't really disabilities they're just different abilities and all these things that are

00:09:55.560 fundamentally untrue these people are quite literally rootless they don't have those solid

00:10:01.720 things to to to hearken to or to come back to um i noticed that for a way back when i used to work

00:10:09.800 with emotionally disturbed children and uh you know you'd watch all of the participation trophies

00:10:18.200 and the feel-good things that aren't really based on true things and on values you can take you can

00:10:24.840 shatter illusions in an instant but you can't shatter truth i watched and you know anytime

00:10:31.160 those kids were awarded some illegitimate thing it did very very little for them it may make them

00:10:39.960 feel good at a moment but i watched those kids go through terrible things in their life and if they

00:10:45.160 could claim to one true victory they had over something or one thing they actually won by

00:10:50.680 merit and by truth they hold on to that in the darkest times and no matter what life's

00:10:56.040 life throws at them they can't take away the fact that you know on september 30th

00:11:03.160 2003 in second grade you know spelling bee you won that doesn't go away no matter what else

00:11:11.240 happens that's a fact and you can rely on fact you can hold on to it i think from an esoteric

00:11:16.440 standpoint one of the things that i've found particularly valuable um and i think that some

00:11:23.160 of you guys watching may be familiar with this but the nine doors of midgard uh by dr stephen flowers

00:11:31.400 that's a really interesting curriculum but one of the first things that they have you do

00:11:35.640 is create a list of of your positive characteristics and the negative things about yourself

00:11:44.040 and to be brutally honest and the value of this list is in that honesty or in that truth

00:11:50.760 and if you're honest with yourself about your negatives and you go back and reevaluate it

00:11:57.640 it doesn't sound esoteric but it's the foundation that you build your esoterics upon

00:12:04.120 that has been meaningful to me and i still go back and look at that list from time to time that i

00:12:09.480 started many years ago and see you know what progress i've made on on those negative things

00:12:15.720 about myself so being honest and truthful with yourself is i don't think in and of itself it's

00:12:23.160 esoteric but it is the foundation to which every meaningful esoteric is built upon

00:12:30.600 um we have question have you read dr jordan peterson's 12 rules for life he has a chapter

00:12:37.320 called tell the truth or at least don't lie i have not cliff have you read that i have not but i

00:12:43.880 agree with the subject uh the title of the chapter it's a it life gets complicated when you

00:12:50.280 start having to maintain lies i mean like i've told lies before you know i was a kid i was a

00:12:57.200 teenager and it there's this like sense of dread constantly when you have stuff out there

00:13:06.620 that's not that's not real that's not truthful it's just it you know for for me at least telling

00:13:13.940 the truth and being truthful is most of the time not always there's always exceptions but

00:13:19.520 it's actually easier in the long run like in the moment saying what people want to hear might be

00:13:24.560 easier but on the whole absolutely not it's a lot of work to maintain an alternate reality

00:13:32.180 no i absolutely um that's one of the i don't know it's one of the things that i've also said

00:13:43.420 on this program about trying to structure your life in a way that everything's congruent

00:13:48.180 if you're wearing different masks and you've got to pretend to be a different person

00:13:52.720 around each of these different audiences the more you've got to juggle those things the more you've

00:13:58.660 got to maintain illusions, the harder and like Cliff said, the more stressful things are in the

00:14:04.760 long run. I've watched and telling the truth is like vomiting in a way. And hear me out on this.

00:14:15.080 So it's going to get out there anyway. And you can spend a lot of time making yourself

00:14:20.460 uncomfortable trying to hold back from telling the truth on it. But once you finally do it,

00:14:26.420 then it's done and then you can relax and it's over with um brush your teeth there you go um

00:14:34.760 but yeah i think that's that's really important and also the title of that uh chapter in dr

00:14:40.340 peterson's book and i have no idea if this correlates to the information in it but

00:14:45.340 there's fundamental honesty that you can be dishonest and not technically tell a lie

00:14:57.660 and i think the truth that we value uh in this virtue context is the idea of being truthful

00:15:07.260 not so much as the legalistic point of if you in fact told somebody a lie or not because misleading

00:15:15.340 is dishonest as well. And I think that's kind of an interesting nuance to this discussion.

00:15:22.660 Yeah, you don't have to tell the whole truth all the time. There's plenty of circumstances

00:15:26.680 where that would be inappropriate. You know, we have to do this in AFA leadership to maintain,

00:15:33.180 you know, confidentiality and confidences when people, members come to us with problems and

00:15:40.180 maybe somebody asks us about it and we say it's taken care of that's not the whole story of course

00:15:46.480 but that's as much as somebody might need to know um or even just like you know organizational

00:15:53.840 details that would be inappropriate if they're out there like having a surprise party for someone

00:15:58.380 right it's it the full truth is not the best way to implement a surprise party so

00:16:03.880 yeah well that's you you raise another point there too i think oftentimes people feel compelled to lie

00:16:16.420 because they don't realize they have the option of just not answering people you know none of

00:16:25.560 your business is an appropriate answer i'm not going to tell you is appropriate is an appropriate

00:16:31.920 answer, I would appreciate all of those answers better than somebody lying to me just to get me

00:16:39.080 to leave them alone. And I think that, I think we often do that. And this kind of, there's themes in

00:16:45.880 some of these shows, but Alan pointed this out with the idea of speaking intentionally. Very

00:16:52.800 often we get in this habit of seemingly inconsequential untruth because it's just easier

00:17:01.600 or we perceive it's just easier that way in the flow of conversation. It's worth those extra few

00:17:07.320 seconds to think about it and be like, you know what? That information is private. Like Cliff

00:17:12.420 said with the confidentiality, you know, I don't have to lie to still not break confidentiality.

00:17:19.880 I can straight up say, hey, I can't tell you that, or I'm not going to tell you that, or any other thing.

00:17:25.440 And I think something else to bring up that's also very relevant is you don't have to be rude.

00:17:35.000 Like there's ways to deliver truth that's kind and you can you can pad truth, not with dishonesty, but with politeness.

00:17:50.800 There's there's ways to do it. I think sometimes people fear that if they're honest, it's going to necessarily be be rude.

00:17:57.840 And I think there are there are artful ways around that.

00:18:00.640 uh daniel asks witten cliff would you agree that honesty isn't synonymous with truth yes um

00:18:12.280 honesty is telling the truth but the truth itself is

00:18:19.300 uh a deeper concept like we talked about a little bit earlier

00:18:24.960 yeah it's it's tricky because i think

00:18:33.680 honesty is expressing truth whereas truth exists in general honesty is the display

00:18:43.980 of truth be it verbal or otherwise yeah if there were no humans there would still be truth the

00:18:51.700 truth might be there are no humans, but there would be no honesty if there were no creatures

00:18:57.000 to communicate about it. I've got another question here. What do you think when someone says

00:19:10.980 my truth? It seems to me like they are saying it has nothing to do with actual reality.

00:19:17.920 What are your reactions to that, Cliff?

00:19:20.800 I agree completely that they are intentionally detaching themselves from actual reality.

00:19:31.360 They are, you know, they're all bubble boys.

00:19:36.580 I mean, they have their own little world and they when they say my truth, they they are essentially saying that they get to create their own laws of nature, you know, and some of them may not be a very big deal.

00:19:53.580 Some of them may be a huge deal that's going to cause lots of problems for the people around them if, you know, they're expected to cater to these personal truths.

00:20:04.860 um context matters i suppose you know somebody could say my truth in in a context where it

00:20:12.500 isn't quite as negative as i'm i'm taking it but these days the way that people use it out there

00:20:19.420 i think it's largely them uh excusing themselves from the actual truth

00:20:25.380 yeah you know i've i've got a couple of thoughts on it i think that it's one of those things that

00:20:33.740 maybe originally didn't have such a negative meaning and has become completely developed

00:20:41.160 of one. Now, whenever somebody says that, it seems to be a preface to

00:20:46.960 them telling you something that's not true. Let me tell you my truth. And then some woke nonsense

00:20:55.660 that doesn't conform to any kind of reality.

00:20:58.640 I think that I've heard the term used before

00:21:04.740 in saying what you believe to be true,

00:21:11.320 even against popular opinion or popular perception,

00:21:19.800 as if on a, like testifying about something to go,

00:21:23.500 you know, tell your truth.

00:21:25.660 meaning maybe express something that is true to you as far as a subjective experience goes

00:21:34.360 but yeah in general I think that when somebody specifies that it's their truth as opposed to

00:21:39.880 other people's truth it's probably because it's not truth at all um oh we've got a got a super

00:21:49.000 dooper chat from Corey Proudfoot for $10. Thank you so much. We really appreciate that.

00:21:55.980 When we fail to speak, when we fail to speak hard truths, we keep others in denial. When we lie,

00:22:03.600 we force others into delusion. I think there is truth in that comment, Corey.

00:22:11.340 Sounds right to me.

00:22:12.560 Um, something else I noticed over in the, uh, oh, apparently that is a quote from Dr. Peterson.

00:22:24.360 And, uh, yeah, I tend to agree with that. Certainly. Um, over on the side, we've got

00:22:30.520 somebody quoting the have them all for us. And I think this raises an interesting thing for us to

00:22:35.680 talk about. An honorable friend deserves truth, but a false friend has forfeited all right to it.

00:22:41.940 And thus deception may be repaid with lies if necessary to avoid ruin as stated in the have them all. So I think that's a have them all paraphrase there. But certainly that that is what the have them all says in the fundamentals.

00:22:56.180 And I think that's an important nuance. Because these things are our core values doesn't mean they're not things that we're capable of acting differently with if there's purpose or there's intent.

00:23:15.940 but it does mean it should be our default setting. And I certainly think it means it's what we owe

00:23:22.880 to other noble people who are acting nobly. But yeah, you're correct. And by extension,

00:23:31.520 the Allfather is correct by advising that folks that treat you dishonestly are not entitled to

00:23:39.720 being treated honestly by you. And certainly there's tactics and context involved. This is

00:23:45.200 another Cliffism. Cliff is always the guy that makes the point in any of our internal discussions

00:23:53.780 about how context is everything in some of these things. And I think that the context matters there

00:24:00.420 specifically. What are your thoughts about it, Cliff? I think the use in that translation of

00:24:08.180 the the havamol stanza there um if it was sticking to the way we framed honesty and truth in our

00:24:15.220 conversation here it may have used the word honesty more than truth because if we're holding

00:24:21.780 up truth as um unchanging and eternal then what that stanza is talking about is really honesty

00:24:30.820 You know, it is not immoral to use deception on a battlefield or in politics or something like that.

00:24:41.260 Those are things that you should be doing because they're in your best interest and the best interest of your people, your tribe, your family, your unit, whatever the group that you are devoted to and responsible for.

00:24:56.580 um so in a way um you know lying to your enemy is truthful i think that's what you're supposed to do

00:25:08.720 um because you know it's like when when you get these you know irs scam calls you you should not

00:25:15.600 tell them your social security number and that doesn't make you a bad person right so

00:25:21.440 yeah no um absolutely and i think that most of the time when we're talking about these values

00:25:30.640 and some of them don't have a social component they all can be applied socially but this one

00:25:37.220 has kind of a i suppose it comes with the the conflating of truth and honesty because i do

00:25:43.580 think the two are very intimately related and worth talking about in the same breath

00:25:49.460 but truth exists regardless of social circumstance honesty is a characteristic informed by truth

00:25:58.900 that is of value in the standard when dealing with noble people who are you know that's that's

00:26:06.340 the default when dealing with people that you have no enmity with um but yeah and and tactically

00:26:16.580 there's there's a lot of deception to where, you know, there's levels of deception depending on the

00:26:23.180 person that you're dealing with. But a fundamental of all of that, like Cliff said, is the more you

00:26:30.040 maintain truth regularly and the less deception you have to manage, the better. Because once you

00:26:36.800 say it, it's all it's all something you have to keep track of and manage if it's not fundamentally

00:26:41.580 true. We also have another super chat from Joe Manning with 41 US dollars. Thank you so much

00:26:49.500 for that, Joe. We appreciate it. As a side note, the down payment on Sigurheim, if every AFA member

00:26:56.640 donated $41, we would have that in the bag right now. So I appreciate that, Joe, and thanks for

00:27:04.120 doing your part. He says, in light of the have them all quote, have either of you had an experience

00:27:09.780 where you had difficulty reconciling honesty with either tactics or kindness cliff i'm gonna let you

00:27:17.540 go first on that i i believe the answer is yes i'm trying to think of a specific instance um i mean

00:27:28.340 And certainly, people have to do that.

00:27:40.000 The short answer is yes.

00:27:41.420 I'll think and see if I can come up with a more detailed example.

00:27:45.920 But I think, of course, we all have.

00:27:50.840 Well, thanks, Cliff.

00:27:52.200 I fed you the question so that I would have time to think about my answer.

00:27:56.940 I was spoiled.

00:27:58.340 Um, yeah. So, and, and I don't want to shortchange your question. I'll absolutely give you a good

00:28:06.480 answer as it occurs to me, but on the top, and I suppose this is a, this is a good thing for a

00:28:13.220 number, you know, for quite a few years now, I have tried very hard to be truthful and to get

00:28:23.960 out of the habit of being tempted to be dishonest out of convenience or out of

00:28:31.160 things like that. I can't think of tactically

00:28:36.620 times, you know, I'm trying to think, cause I want to answer your question. And certainly

00:28:42.620 there've been times that have been difficult to reconcile, certainly with tactics and with

00:28:48.740 kindness. And I'm also certain there's times where I've lied for both of those reasons in the course

00:28:54.760 of my life. Tactically, I have let people, so early on with AFA stuff, I suppose this is a small one

00:29:11.920 and I don't feel bad about it, but just as a note, I've let people believe things that aren't

00:29:17.820 necessarily true like it always entertained me early on and we've certainly grown since then but

00:29:23.660 when our member number was very much smaller people would ask me you know how many members

00:29:27.820 are in the afa and you know lately i've gotten very frank with just saying out loud right now

00:29:34.700 we've got 932 members but at the time you know i i'd respond by well how many members do you think

00:29:42.460 in the afa and they would tell me like tens of thousands and you know these spectacular numbers

00:29:49.660 and i would kind of nod and move on and it wasn't really dishonest but i would certainly let them

00:29:54.700 continue thinking that uh that we were more successful than we were i think that's a really

00:30:00.140 small thing i certainly don't feel bad about that but i that's just the quickest tactical dishonesty

00:30:07.180 i think uh that i can think of right now out of kindness this is i'm sure that i have and i'm not

00:30:15.820 trying to skirt the question but something i've always really valued about myself in my friendships

00:30:22.780 in my life i've tried really hard throughout my adult life to be honest when people ask my opinion

00:30:32.700 and never just tell them what they want to hear specifically so that they knew they could trust

00:30:39.900 my opinion um because i i i value that in others and i really want people to have that in me like

00:30:49.580 when they ask my opinion i'm going to tell them and it may make my negative commentary not make

00:30:59.340 them feel good but it means they can take my compliments to the bank and they can trust that

00:31:04.860 when i say they're doing something well that i really mean it and i even you know i even do this

00:31:09.580 with children or whatever i try not to overly flatter something to where if i say something

00:31:15.100 is done well that it really means that because again i think that you can put trust in that and

00:31:22.060 it puts your mind at ease if you can believe the advice you're getting but if you have a friend

00:31:26.620 that just wants to tell you what you want to hear it may be nice but it doesn't give you peace of

00:31:32.060 mind and it doesn't help you sleep at night but i promise as this conversation goes on if i think

00:31:37.820 of other instances i will i'll put those out there for you i've thought of a few types of things

00:31:43.740 they're not i can't identify them as like specific instances more like scenarios that i know i've

00:31:51.180 been in um so i don't know if this applies to the the tactically part of the question per se

00:31:59.660 um and this one's kind of more of a fun answer but i mean i've bluffed in poker

00:32:05.020 um you know and that's expected that's part of the rules of the game right but um

00:32:11.180 that's a dishonesty that's that's there that is you know on purpose and expected as far as um

00:32:19.100 you know having to do to tell truths or to be honest and you know in situations that are difficult

00:32:26.780 um i i have um there's a couple things i have you know let people fail at things

00:32:34.460 because it's better for them to learn things the hard way um this is true professionally this is

00:32:40.860 true when raising children this is true um you know with with afa leadership sometimes i'll see

00:32:48.140 mistake in progress and maybe just let it play out because uh a lecture as opposed to real experience

00:32:55.420 is just never as good um i think everyone has been in the situation where you have to break

00:33:05.740 up with someone that you're in a relationship with and they haven't done anything wrong it's

00:33:11.900 you know literally the cliche it's it's not you it's me where you are just not

00:33:19.020 wanting to continue that and you know you have to hurt them to do what's best for everybody involved

00:33:24.700 so that you know is is something that i think most people can relate to and um specifically

00:33:31.260 relating to us true um i have had um to speak to a few people that wanted to be members who

00:33:39.260 were were not suitable for membership um and to tell them this the reasons for that and to get

00:33:47.740 them in a direction that's going to be more healthy for them um but knowing that you know i'm saying

00:33:55.180 no that's not something they want to hear and um you know to to try to be helpful with that but

00:34:02.220 also with the you know the expectation of they may just not like what i'm saying

00:34:09.260 I

Asatru Folk Assembly - February 12, 2024

The Truth is Out There...or at least Part 1 is

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