What is the truth about truth? If it is absolute, if it is not subject to interpretation, why can I not perceive it? Where does it hide? Behind the eyes and between the ears? Is it secreting away in the nooks and crannies of my brain; does it burrow down somewhere between the folds where it waits to be germinated? Is it a seed? Does the soil sometimes turn on it, refuse to give the truth a place to root down? Do synaptic thorns choke it, kill it young?
Yes. I think that’s it.
Or maybe not.
Maybe there’s something more to it. I read an article that indicates long-term alcohol abuse may lead to damage of the central auditory pathways in the brain, that it can lead to hearing loss. Addiction is a jealous lover. She whispers lies straight past the inner ear, straight to the auditory cortex. She dulls the ears, perhaps the inner ear too. The inner ear—this is the epicenter of balance, of upright walking. Maybe addiction upsets this too.
Addiction is a flattering lover who distracts us from the pains of the day. Yes, maybe that’s it.
But not entirely.
Certain truths remain absolute, even though they are unseen. They are hidden by the hazy webs of self; addiction—isn’t she a venomous spider? She spins alternative, sticky truths. Her webs occupy to the exclusion of others. She injects cravings that become needs, cravings that numb the pain of being eaten alive. I consider it, how my head was once a tangle of webs, how it still is on occasion.
My head is clear today, though. There are no lovers or webs. I consider the truth—the simple, sober Truth—and it is this: I drove to Austin expecting to be exposed or dried out. I drove to Austin with a festering heart. I drove to Austin under the influence of something poisonous, something other. And despite the something other that occupied my hearing, the still small whisper I first heard in my childhood mesquite grove in Texas cut through the noise, burned every gossamer thread of tangled web.
It found me, this voice of voices.
There are pains that can be numbed with addiction, and the ways of addictions are myriad: some acceptable, others secret. The ways of undoing addiction—really undoing, I think—are few: confess and kill addiction; root out the underlying pain.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Be the foot crushing the spider.