You get a truth! You get a truth! You get a truth!

EVERYBODY GETS A TRUTH!

The very notion of personal truth contradicts the defining characteristic of truth. Truth is objective. It is the same for us all. Though it may look different to different people depending on one’s perspective, these observations have no effect on what actually is.

But what if one could change what is? What if one possessed the ability to reshape reality at will? Well, that complicates things, as WandaVision demonstrates.

Is this really happening? Yes, despite basic reproductive biology, Wanda really was pregnant and really delivered twins. Yes, despite the earnest desire for freedom from its inhabitants, Westview really was an idyllic community in which to live the perfect life. The boys’ existence, and the town’s unspoiled way of life, was objectively observed by the entire town. They were, as far as the world was concerned, Wanda’s truth.

Without chaos magic, though, to make one’s perspective into a custom made, objective personal truth, attempts to claim “your truth” are merely unfounded attempts to piggyback beliefs that don’t stand on their own on the inherent validity of a universal constant.

However fervently we believe something that directly contradicts objective reality, it does not become reality. However a person superficially alters one’s body, it doesn’t change the reality of what is. A man will continue to be a man, no matter how hard he insists otherwise and regardless of the lengths he goes to prove it. Some may even be persuaded by his efforts, but their acceptance of the lie has no bearing on truth.

Truth will not suffer lip service as a mere birth assignment. It has no expiration date. It is and always will be. Even if what has transpired can be reversed, it can never be made to have not happened. Mangling one’s genitals only creates an additional truth of irreparable harm that will likewise live forever.

But isn’t claiming objective physical reality to be true while saying physical alterations run afoul of abstract truth essentially trying to have my cake and eat it too? No. Having one’s cake and eating it too is recognizing the eternal and trying to anchor it to the temporal. It is acknowledging that one’s true self transcends one’s physical body and then reasoning that such a true self fits the biological confines of sex in such a superficial way that conveniently aligns with one’s perspective. It is trying to will something objectively untrue into existence, living a ridiculous fantasy, tearing yourself apart rather than facing the truth.

Having one’s cake and eating it too is insisting that others also stay captive to that fantasy. It’s insisting that others must recognize and cater to your perspective. It is insisting that all of society share your discomfort with basic facts of life such as the existence of deadly viruses and the inability to effectively throw a net on them, insisting that others wallow in your insecurities so you can pretend they’re reasonable and responsible–brave even.

It’s holding a community captive, poisoning them with your own grief and pain, while insisting its for their own benefit. It’s insisting you’ve kept them safe and at peace when they’re telling you to your face that you’ve only made things worse.

So what’s the takeaway? Trust the science? Don’t trust the science? Trust this science, but not that science?.

The takeaway is that science isn’t a thing to be trusted or believed in. It’s a way of understanding the truth of our physical reality. We can believe that a specific conclusion drawn from science is true or untrue, but believing in science itself as a source of truth is as short-sighted and problematic as believing an individual’s perspective constitutes truth.

If there’s anything that can be agreed upon by those who advocate for the transgender cause and those who reject it, those who advocate for lockdowns and those who reject them, it’s that human beings are more than the sum of our parts. Call it a soul, call it your true self, call it an emotional well-being, we all recognize it and draw different conclusions from it.

That is truth. That is something to believe in. That is something eternal that’s too big to grasp in its entirety. Trying to hold it, to show it to others, to manipulate it, to make it our own–that only smudges it up with our fingerprints.

Even with Wanda’s godlike powers, with the ability to bend reality better than a mere understanding of science could ever hope to accomplish, she couldn’t alter the truth. She couldn’t hold it without messing it up. She couldn’t determine what was best for a small town’s inhabitants better than they could, let alone whole country.

When she finally faced the truth–of the mortality of her loved ones, of the lack of shortcuts around fundamental biology to achieve the life her spirit longs for, of the inability of control to produce prosperity–she let go of “her truth.” She decided to pursue “the truth” with as much focus as ever before, in her own way, without dragging others into it against their will.

Those of us who wish to remake reality in whatever capacity we wield–as voters, government officials, consumers, peers, informed citizens–would do well to learn from her mistakes.