“In life, we all need to be slapped in our face with harsh truths a few times.”
I am not talking about truths of physics, facts about material objects, or some secret about your crush’s relationship status. We are often too good at gossiping about “external truths” already. Rarely do we look deep enough into ourselves.
The harsh truth I am referring to is a kind of inconvenient truth that unveils your flawed inner nature or pattern of mind, something you have hitherto been taking for granted subconsciously. It is thus not just any random insult or criticism, the slap must hit some kind of deep truth that the recipient actually agrees in the back of their mind, albeit they might not be fully conscious just yet and appear defensive initially. Maybe this is kind of like “planting a seed in one’s mind” as some people say?
However, a deep truth that hits the bullseye and is at the same time somewhat upsetting constitutes more than just planting a seed in my opinion — It alludes to the self-renewing catalyst that upset a “stable” equilibrium reaction, eventually triggering the full transfiguration of the primordial chemical soup; It parallels the one-of-a-kind evolutionary agent which sparked the great Cambrian explosion, creating an unprecedented marvel of endless forms; It resembles the one…
