By Malek Arol Dhieu
Albert Einstein says truth is what stands the test of experience. He is indeed more than right to crown truth with this truth. When you choose to be a truth-teller, you also choose to be hated for no reason other than telling the truth because truth hurts but people are unaware that deception hurts more than truth. In choosing to be a truth-teller, it is advantageous that you may not be buying lotions to oil your body, but instead, you should always tell the truth so that when you are insulted, gossiped or hated, you will use these insults, gossip, and hatreds to smear yourself with.
You may be assailed with challenging questions to test whether or not you are the truth-teller of all time, but never let your heart skip a beat, for you are being tested by human beings like you, hold your breath and tell the truth so that it sets you free. If you become prominent in telling the truth, you may be bribed by people whom your truths hurt, but dear truth-teller, never mistake touching that bribery because it may shut your mouth up in your course of telling the truth. Truth indeed sets people free, but it sets them free when they tell it in daylight, meaning the truth that is told in the absence of the ones it should be told to is the truth that sometimes never sets people free.
If you tell the truth in the form of gossip, then get prepared to be enslaved by what you think is your truth. Although there are professions such as comedy, politics to mention a few, that are diluting the fact that truth sets people free as they yield best when coated with lies, it should be taken into account that the freedom that the lies give people is not free, but that which the truth gives is far, much beyond free. Nothing gives you freedom like your truth.
In conclusion, it is a story of a Billy-goat and a hyena during the time when both animals and humans used to speak. One time, a Billy goat went mounting to a very far village. At 8 o’clock, the house owner drove his goats inside the tukul and left out the Billy goat. The Billy goat rounded the tukul for hours and when it thought of returning, it was already late. On its way back home at around 11 o’clock, it met with a hyena that had eaten a cow alone to an extent it became satiated too much that even a piece of meat could not enter its stomach. The hyena said very good, very good, people say I’m lucky and it is true, now I have found my food. Mr. Billy goat, if you tell me 3 truths, I will free you, said the hyena.
The billy goat replied, dear hyena, go ahead, eat me because I know you will still eat me however much real the truths, I tell you are. The hyena said, trust me, if you tell the truth, I will set you free. The billy goat began telling the three truths as follows:
- I have offended to roam during the time goats should not roam, but animals such as you. The hyena said “Excellent”.
- If you free me now to go home and I tell the other goats that I have met with a hyena today and it freed me, they will never believe it. The hyena said ”wonderful”, one more truth to go.
- Lastly, the billy goat said, when did hyenas learn to ask goats at first, if it is you now, you have become satisfied somewhere. The hyena said fabulous, go home now in peace. What freed the billy goat was the truth. Tell the truth so that it sets you free.
Thanks for reading “Sowing the Seed of truth “.
The author is a medical student, University of Juba.