I recently heard a podcast with a thirty-year-old woman who had written a book about dating. Aside from writing the book and being married, she had no other credentials in the field. Yet she spoke like she’d discovered the universal rules of modern romance: how to approach online dating, how to ask someone out, and what a good first date should be.
But I’ve asked many women similar questions (what a date should be, what a man should or shouldn’t say, what they’re looking for in a partner) and the answers are all over the place. One woman said a man should never bring up his job on a first date because it’s boring and impersonal. Another said, if a guy doesn’t ask about her work or mention his own, it feels like a red flag. Both of them spoke with the same certainty.
This confident nonsense is not just a problem in the dating sphere, either. Everywhere you turn, there’s someone claiming to know the best way to eat, how to raise children, and who to vote for. Each answer seems to contradict the last.
This is, partly, a problem of our mass media headline-driven culture. If a scientific study finds that 90% of people see health improvements from eating a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast every day, the headline becomes: “Oatmeal Improves Health.” But what about the 10% of study participants who didn’t improve? Or the small slice of that group who actually got worse? The confident “truth” ignores their reality.
The Information Age has given us endless access to data and information. But we lack the habits that turn data into wisdom. Instead of knowledge, we get noise. Instead of answers, we get overconfidence dressed as truth.
So how do we find what’s real? I lean on four practices that help me cut through the clamor: old stories, genuine inquiry, disciplined attention to intuition, and writing.
The truth is more potent in certain forms. Stories, especially old ones, are one of the most potent sources of truth. They don’t last unless they’re built on something solid, like a deep truth about the human condition.
Our inner worlds contain the tools for unpacking those truths. If we don’t mine for truth in our hearts and minds, then we’re apt to accept and repeat lies that others pass off as truth. We see this all the time. One media personality says something, and they all start parroting it. Do they stop to wonder if what they’re repeating is actually true?
Honest reflection, the kind that asks uncomfortable questions and is willing to challenge its own assumptions, is key. Truth-seeking is the lifeblood of many ways of life (stoicism, Christianity, Buddhism, etc) and the basis of many psychotherapies (CBT, DBT, IFS, ACT, etc). Algorithms reward confident opinions, but life rewards honest seeking.
Yet we are more than minds. We’re bodies and souls. We have knowledge that is deeper than our thoughts. We have intuition. And by that I don’t just mean fleeting feelings or instincts. I’m talking about the quieter, deeper knowing that lives in our bodies. We must pay attention to what feels tense or open, alive or heavy. Our bodies often know the truth before our minds can articulate it.
Still, our intuitions must be balanced by our thoughts. The two must be synthesized and integrated. For that, the best tool is pen and paper. Writing helps us notice and articulate what we believe, what we feel, and what we already know underneath all the noise.
If we practiced those four things more often—read the old stories, ask better questions, learn to feel more carefully, and write what we learn—we’d be wiser than our headlines.
But if you only take my word for it, you’re perpetuating the cycle of nonsense. Break the cycle now by giving yourself a few minutes of silence. Write what you believe and why. Then see whether it’s yours.
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