As I read through my Facebook feed (something I do far less often than I once did), I find that political discourse these days has degenerated into a disgusting morass. Perhaps you’ve noticed, too?

I see lots of memes and rhetoric bandied about in support of a political issue or against it, venerating public figures or vilifying them. Some are witty. Many are mean. And nearly all of them seem to be more interested in “winning” the argument for their chosen team than they are about getting to the truth of the issue. The “facts” presented are frequently poorly sourced, often are not a fair representation of the broader story, and plausible counterexamples, when presented, are merely brushed off and ignored rather than dealt with on their merits (or lack thereof). Indeed, I sincerely question if anybody even cares about the truth anymore!

Yet in the end, isn’t that what we should care about the most? Shouldn’t we try hardest to ensure that our beliefs are actually true, rather than try to be effective at convincing others that our beliefs—which could be false—are true? I mean, even though you might think that it’s safe to cross the street, wouldn’t it be important to you to know if it actually is safe? Perhaps you didn’t see an oncoming car because it was in a blind spot, or it came roaring around the corner while you were checking for traffic in the other direction. But one thing’s for certain: it doesn’t matter how convinced you were that it was safe, what matters most as you step out into the street is whether or not it was actually safe!

In this admittedly extreme example, ignorance of the truth can have dire consequences. But ignorance of the truth can have serious consequences even if it’s not a matter of life and death. For instance, if you’ve placed your trust in an employee that you were unaware has been embezzling from you for years…it won’t end well. If you think your relationship with your significant other is going great, but your other half disagrees, you’re going to be in for quite a shock someday.

It can be disappointing sometimes to learn the truth, even painful. But knowing the truth always puts us in a position where we can make better decisions. Knowing the truth is always a win, even when it feels in the moment like a loss.

I believe it’s time to rekindle a sincere respect for Truth. In fact, I think it’s time for us to revere it!

To that end, I’ve crafted something I am calling The Socratic Challenge. Think of it as a sort of Hippocratic Oath, but instead of doctors, it is for all people with the courage to commit to a lifelong dedication to the Truth.

So here it is, The Socratic Challenge:

I swear, by my desire to lead a life of virtue and honor, that I do hereby and forevermore commit myself to the pursuit of Truth. I will let Truth be, in all things, the compass that directs my beliefs and the balance upon which I weigh my actions. I shall continuously expose my own beliefs to its light, and muster the courage to change them when they are found wanting. I will not abide falsehood, and I will relentlessly expose it wherever it is found, that Truth may prosper. May this oath ever find its Truth in me!

So, do you have what it takes? Are you up to the Challenge? I dare you to take the oath.

I double-dare you to live by it!

Each birthday, I find myself thinking about life and meaning. What have I done with my life? Where have I been? Where am I going? You know, the big questions. And this time around, I find myself reflecting particularly on regret. Specifically, on one sobering realization: mistakes are often permanent. There are no do-overs.

There was a time in my life when I didn’t have regrets. In a job interview back when I was a (very) young adult, my interviewer asked me if I had any regrets. It took me by surprise. I had never been asked that before, and I had never really thought about it before. I tried to do right, be good to people, be dependable. I didn’t feel like I had much to regret. I answered, quite sincerely, that I had no regrets. But then, during that interview, it struck me: I regretted dropping out of college. I just never fully realized it until the moment that I was encouraged, in a job interview of all places, to think about it. And it bothered me. It turns out it bothered me a lot: I got the job, but in less than a year I had re-enrolled at my old university to finish what I had started. And since it was 200 miles away, I quit my job and moved out of town as well.

And I got my college degree. Thankfully, some mistakes can be undone.

Unfortunately, many mistakes—far too many mistakes, in my experience—are permanent. Many things you say or do (and even things you might not say or do) don’t have a rewind button. They can’t be taken back, they can’t be undone. Some of these irreversible missteps can cause so much harm to your relationships or your reputation that they can never be repaired, not fully.

And I find that my regrets are compounded with age! As I grow in wisdom, I become aware of things I have done and said that I didn’t even recognize at the time were so regrettable, and am now all too aware of how harmful they were to myself—or worse, to the ones I love.

But there’s a lesson in these painful realizations, and I believe it is this: live your life like it matters. Strive to do your best, always. With rare exceptions, there are no do-overs…so act like it.

A while back, I wrote a post in a writing forum that I’m actually quite proud of. And I thought I would post it here in case any of you might also find some value in it. The big question that everybody has about writing is: how do you do it?

After several failed attempts at writing anything substantial, I eventually found the shortcut that taps into your creativity and gives it free reign. In my experience, it works every time. You see, there are two ways to write: you can apply a slavish dedication to getting it right on the first draft, painstakingly choosing every word as you go…or you can apply the method I describe in the following message that I shared. In this context, I was giving advice about getting past writer’s block. But in practice, I highly recommended this approach for all writing, all the time:

A stream-of-consciousness timed writing helps to grease the synapses every time.

When you’re stuck, open a blank text file (or old-schoolers can grab a blank sheet of paper), set a timer for 15 minutes, and start writing. The rules are DO NOT STOP WRITING, even if it’s innane crap. Eventually, the part of your brain that hasn’t frozen up kicks in and gives you something to work with. Works every time.

It looks like this:

I don’t know why I’m stuck, why can’t I think of anything to write? I usually can think of stuff, but now I can’t, all I can think about it mud. What’s up with that? MUD?! Hmm, that’s an acronym for something, isn’t it? But I can’t think of what it stands for. So now I can’t write AND I can’t think. Bummer.

Jerad bit into the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, without expectation, and his lack of enthusiasm was rewarded with the lackluster flavor he was anticipating not enjoying. He was pretty sure his Dad used the same ingredients his mother did (after all, how many ingredients ARE there in a p-b-and-j)? In fairness to his dad, nothing tasted quite the same since Jerad’s mother died. First there was the shock of the accident itself. He thought he would never get over that odd “missing” feeling he had. The day finally came, though at one time he swore it never would, where he finally gave up that small hope in his mind that she might somehow return, even while he knew it wasn’t possible. She was dead. And after he came to face that fact, life had gotten back to normal. Mostly. But still, nothing tasted good anymore.

That was less than 15 minutes, but it looks like I have a nugget of something if I wanted to work with it. It’s riddled with errors, and I see I have some clumsy phrases, but the goal is to throw a mis-shaped lump of text onto the page that I can later edit.

I can tell you from experience that the stream-of-consciousness approach consistently produces writing that is more nuanced, more raw, and more authentic. In other words, “better.” Every time.

So if you are a frustrated writer, I highly recommend using this method. Quit relying on yourself to come up with the right words all the time, and instead allow the words that are presented to you to flow out onto the page. You’ll still need to edit it, perhaps even substantially, but the core of what you will produce will be absolutely golden. I guarantee it.

This one is for the love-broken. You, who were drawn to love’s soothing glow, only to be cast back out into the darkness. You, who gambled to join your fate to another and lost. You, who question whether ’tis truly “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, ” who wish you could somehow un-love, to erase those happy days because their cost is paid now by your sorrow…

Have courage.

Have courage because you are not alone.

Have courage because your story, unique to you in its particulars, is a story writ again and again on the hearts of all people.

All people understand how you feel right now, because they too have walked that lonely road. And they are confident on your behalf that it will get better (even though it certainly doesn’t seem so now), because everyone knows what you will soon discover: that lonely road is much shorter than it looks.

So take your time. Mourn your loss, honor everything that was good about your love. It fed you in ways you won’t fully understand until many years from now. But we can all promise you that it was “worth it,” if only because love is indeed the greatest good in this twisted and broken existence: for that sweet moment that you wished could last forever, you were doing your part to make the world a better place. So mourn.

But when you’ve regained your strength, please find a way to love again. The love-broken world needs you to make it whole once more.

I have a confession to make: I am prone to nostalgia—very prone to nostalgia! But what does it mean to be “very” prone to nostalgia? Perhaps an example will demonstrate:

I was at summer camp, going into 7th grade. And toward the end of the week, there was a dance. Now, I don’t like dancing and I’ve always been a very shy person, so I spent much of the time standing against the wall and watching the other kids dance. But toward the end, I mustered the courage to walk over to the girl I’d had the biggest crush on all week long and asked her to dance. And she said yes! It was glorious, and marked the greatest achievement of my young life up to that point.

And to this day, that’s all I remember about it. I don’t remember what song was playing. I don’t remember what we talked about. I don’t remember what she wore, or even what she looked like!

What I do remember is standing in that same room the following day. It was empty, and I was alone. And I remembered everything, reliving those wonderful few minutes once again, in perfect detail. I can’t recall the memories now, but I recall the reminiscing, and the incredible feeling of contentedness that it brought. I remember the nostalgia.

That’s what it means to be “very” prone to nostalgia! Admittedly, this is an extreme example; most of my memories are of the actual events, not of remembering them. But I think I’ve proven my point.

I don’t get nostalgic on purpose, I don’t seek it out. It’s not a crutch I use to escape an unpleasant reality. But my mind is always running, and when I’m not thinking about the present or the future, I’m thinking about the past. It’s that simple.

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I don’t experience emotions much. But when I do experience powerful emotions, they get imprinted indelibly in my memory and stored away. In this way, I’ve built up a great warehouse of feelings through the years, from which I might draw at any time.

But I don’t draw on these memories through any sort of intentional process. Rather, there is a package clerk running around in there, grabbing random boxes off the shelves and delivering them to me, whether I sign off on them or not. Just as life itself serves up both good times and bad times, so even my nostalgia runs me through the ups and downs, on repeat.

And so, I’ve had a thousand first kisses. I’ve proposed a thousand times to ReNae. I’ve held my first child for the first time, a thousand times. I’ve endured a thousand break-ups. I’ve been fired thousands of times. And one thousand times, I have looked upon the caskets of loved ones that are sorely missed.

I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes. It is wonderful, and it is awful. And I wouldn’t give it up for anything!

So, what about you? Are you prone to nostalgia?

I’ve been ruminating quite a bit lately on the idea of friendship. As an INTP, I suspect the way I experience friendship is quite different than it is for many people, so I thought I might share it here, in case anybody should find it educational. Of course, I don’t speak for all INTPs, but I can speak for myself as one. Here is my experience:

When I look on my life, I find I have many acquaintances—but I have very few close friends. As in, I can count them all on one hand, with room to spare: two have become like brothers to me, another has become like a stranger, and one, I’m happy to say, I married.

So how do I make these rare friends? Strictly speaking, I don’t. I’ve never even looked for friends. But every now and then, a person will appear in my life that thoroughly grabs my attention, somebody that I find an instant, deep affinity toward. It’s as though we’ve been friends since the beginning of time and I’m just now recognizing them, like I’m recovering from amnesia. Such friendships, then, are an act of discovery rather than a new creation.

These friends have a remarkable skill: they make me feel alive like nobody else can. You see, I’m a pretty cerebral guy; I don’t “experience” my life so much as I observe it, as if I were looking over my shoulder from behind, always somewhat removed from what’s happening to me. This detachment means that, for the most part, my day to day experience is emotionally muted, even dead. If you were to chart the ups and downs of my emotions over the course of time, with the peak being a joyful contentedness and the bottom being abject despair, you would get a flat line hovering somewhat below the midpoint, punctuated here and there with tiny little bumps toward joy and pain. But my closest friends have this remarkable ability to draw me back into my life, to make me be fully present, and enjoy each moment: they command my full attention. I don’t know how they do it. And it doesn’t take much: even a simple text message or a phone call from these friends can spike me straight to the “joyful contentedness” line, and sustain it for a day or two. This joy, this contentment, is the most precious gift any of them has ever given me, and have continued to give me through the years, and I suspect not a single one has had any suspicion that they’ve ever done so.

In gratitude for the joy and contentment they’ve given me, I find I have an intense loyalty to such friends. And not to my friends only, but to the friendship itself—since these friendships seem timeless to me, they loom as something bigger than ourselves, worthy of honor in their own right. This loyalty is not an act of will, but is drawn out from within, as much a part of me as my gray eyes, as automatic as breathing. And I’ve found that this loyalty is so strong that even when my friendship is spurned, I continue to experience a visceral desire for my friends to know peace and joy, such that I ache when I learn of their sorrows, and rejoice when I learn of their joy—and grow restless when I don’t know how they’re doing!

Unfortunately, this loyalty is a passive loyalty, not an active one. That is, my friends need only to ask me for anything they need, and it is instantly, gladly theirs, to whatever extent I am able. But it would be very rare indeed for me to get out of my head long enough to notice on my own that my friends might need anything—and, by extension, rare that I would spontaneously offer such help. As a result, sadly, this mythic-level loyalty goes largely unrecognized. Ironically, then, I suspect my friendship has a tendency to appear to be quite fickle!

And what about my acquaintances? Are they nobody? Hardly! Actually, much of what I’ve said about my closest friends holds true for them as well, just not to such extremes. I’m happy to help with anything they need, if only they ask, simply because we are acquainted. It’s just that our connection is more transient than it is with my closest friends. Still, my list of acquaintances is very long! Like a kid at a playground who regards everyone else at the playground as new friends, pretty much everybody I’ve ever spoken to that isn’t a self-important buffoon is a-okay in my book!

To summarize: friendship, to me, is an intensely emotional experience that crashes through an otherwise emotionally empty existence, and I therefore cherish it as my most precious treasure—even while I am often slow to actually show it.

So, how about you? I’m really curious to know how you experience friendship! Tell me in the comments below.