There’s an old story that’s been stuck in my mind, about Socrates and his student. One day, a student approached Socrates and said, “Teacher, you are the wisest man in the world. I want to know what truth is. Please tell me!”
Socrates looked hard and the youth and replied, “Do you really want the Truth?”
The student told him that he did. Socrates, not answering, turned and walked away. Naturally, the student began following him. They walked for so long that a small crowd began gathering behind them out of sheer curiosity. Socrates led the youth to the coastline, dragging him by the collar into the waves until they were up to their knees in water. Socrates seized the youth firmly.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
“I want the Truth!” declared the youth.
Socrates answered by plunging the boy under the water and holding him there for some time. Lifting him out again, he demanded, “What do you want?”
“I want the Truth!” the youth replied.
Socrates plunged him down a second time, this time even longer than the first. When he pulled him up again, the youth was sputtering and gasping for air.
“What do you want?” He asked.
“I want the Truth!” cried the youth.
Socrates pushed him under a third time, longer than he ever had. The crowd at the shore began murmuring uncomfortably. One shouted out “Oh Socrates, let him go, for pity’s sake!” but Socrates held him under until his bubbles stopped flowing and his body ceased struggling. Then, at last, Socrates pulled him out again. He was still alive, but barely.
“What do you want?” asked Socrates.
The youth replied, “I want to breathe.”
After a long pause, Socrates said to him, “You get Truth when you need it as much as you need to breathe.”
I have not been able to get the phrase out of my mind. I whisper it to myself as I lie in my bed in the late hours of night, and mutter it to myself in puffs of vapor as I walk to class in the morning. I know, it’s kind of weird, but I can’t stop saying it.
You get Truth when you need it as much as you need to breathe.
In the gospel of John, Pontius Pilate asks Jesus “What is truth?” But the scene closes with the question, and we are left without an answer. Some people have acquired the strange idea that it is a question reserved for philosophy majors. We don’t realize that every field of study seeks to answer the question. For some odd reason, philosophers are the only ones who have the gall to form it into words: What is Truth?
As a college student, I live in an environment that is constantly cultivating an atmosphere for asking questions. For such an academic environment, I am shocked and appalled at how many days, weeks, and months that can go by without anyone once asking the most important question a human being can ask. Half of our questions about identity, gender, race, equality, etc., are merely disguises for the bigger question: What is Truth?
The system for college graduation is somewhat artificial. It is entirely possible for an intelligent, hardworking individual to pass classes with straight A’s and graduate with a successful job without once confronting the question of Truth. In other words, our system is rigged so that it is possible for us to live without the truth. We have enough food, electricity, TV shows, and smartphone apps to last a lifetime. I’m sure a lot of us college students would admit that we wanted the truth, but the truth is (as long as we remain in our current position) we don’t need it. As Socrates taught us, if we don’t need the truth as much as we need to breathe, we won’t get it.
I don’t know why humans are wired this way, but we are. For some reason, we will never seek the truth until we are driven to the point of bleak and utter desperation. Leonard Cohen expresses this beautifully in his song “Hallelujah.” He tells the story of David, a man who had enough wealth and riches to live without the truth—that is, until Bathsheba drew it out of him:
"She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah"
Bathsheba and Socrates are in the same position. Socrates thrust his student underwater; Bathsheba broke David's throne and tied him to a chair. And what was the crucial word that Bathsheba extracted from the lips of the baffled king? Hallelujah.
In the final verse, Cohen writes:
"I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah."
Cohen is speaking for himself. He's tried to find the truth, but "it wasn't much" and he's giving us the best he has. Earlier, Cohen writes "there's a blaze of light in every word // it doesn't matter which you've heard // the holy or the broken Hallelujah." Like David, maybe the "broken Hallelujah" is the only Hallelujah we will know, for the word will never be drawn from our lips unless we have been broken. Cohen has found the word he was looking for, though it all went wrong, and perhaps because it all went wrong. He has discovered the last word on his tongue when no other words are left.
In all these instances, the words of Truth came when the subject was pushed to the end of his line. Socrates’ student, after nearly drowning, said “I want to breathe.” David lost his honor, his kingdom, and his freedom, and simply said “Hallelujah.” And Jesus, nailed to the cross, cried out “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” and breathed His last (Luke 23:46).
Do you want Truth so badly that you are willing to be drowned for it? To be nailed to a cross for it? To be reduced to a state of such hopeless defeat until there is nothing on your tongue but Hallelujah?
I hope so. Because I’m afraid it’s the only way.
You get Truth when you need it as much as you need to breathe.
