A guide to holding truth without inflating your ego or collapsing into despair
You're at a wedding. Your friend is getting married. You pull out your phone and take a photograph of the moment they say "I do."
Later, you look at the photo. It's beautiful. But it's also... limited. It's from one angle. It captured one moment. The colors aren't quite what your eyes saw. The background is a little blurry.
Here's the question: Is the photograph false?
Think about it. The photo didn't capture everything. It's not the full reality of that moment. It's limited by the lens, the angle, the lighting, the sensor.
But would you call it a lie?
Of course not. The photograph IS the wedding—focused through a lens, captured at a particular scale. It's not the whole wedding, but it's not false. It's the wedding having flowed through your camera.
This is the insight that changes everything.
"Limited" does not mean "false."
Limitation is how infinite reality becomes something you can see, hold, and share.
Here's where it gets personal.
You are like the camera. You experience reality. You form thoughts, beliefs, opinions, insights. You create meaning from the world around you.
And everything you perceive, think, and believe is... limited. You can't see all perspectives. You can't know everything. Your brain filters, focuses, and frames reality just like a lens does.
This bothers a lot of people. It bothered me for years.
Because if everything I think is limited, doesn't that mean everything I think is wrong? If I can't see the whole truth, do I see any truth at all?
This is where people get stuck.
Some conclude: "My perspective is limited, so nothing I believe is really true. Truth is unknowable. Why bother?"
Others go the opposite direction: "My experience feels so true, so deep—maybe I AM the source of truth!"
Both paths are traps. And both come from the same mistake.
The mistake is confusing limited with false.
Here's what freed me from that loop:
"Truth flows through me—
I am not its source, I am its lens."
Read it again. Feel what it does.
It's doing several things at once:
It says you matter. A lens is necessary. Without the lens, there's no photograph. Without you, there's no perception of truth at your particular angle.
It says truth is real. Something actually flows. There IS a wedding. There IS reality beyond your perspective.
It keeps you humble. You're not the source. The light doesn't originate from the lens.
It gives you something to do. A lens can be clean or dirty. Clear or distorted. You can work on yourself.
This is the middle path. Not "I am God" and not "nothing is true." Something more honest:
I am the place where truth becomes this particular form.
Once you understand the lens metaphor, you can see two very common mistakes people make—and recognize when you're falling into them yourself.
This is when the lens forgets it's a lens and thinks it's the light source.
"My truth IS Truth."
"I don't need to listen to other perspectives—I already see clearly."
"My experience of the divine means I AM the divine."
You've met these people. Maybe you've been this person. (I have.)
Inflation feels amazing at first. It's a rush of certainty, of special-ness. But it has a tell: it can't be corrected. Someone who's inflated doesn't update their beliefs when reality contradicts them. They explain away the contradictions. They stop listening.
In the camera metaphor: it's like the camera claiming it created the wedding.
This is when the lens concludes that because it's limited, nothing it shows is real.
"Everything is perspective, so nothing is actually true."
"All beliefs are equally valid—or equally worthless."
"Why try to understand anything if I can never see the whole picture?"
This sounds humble. It's not. It's exhausting, isolating, and subtly arrogant—because it says that if YOU can't know the whole truth, the whole truth must not exist.
In the camera metaphor: it's like throwing away all your photos because none of them captured every angle.
Okay. Philosophy is interesting. But what do you DO with this?
Check in. Ask yourself:
"Am I seeing clearly, or am I attached to being right?"
A clean lens can still have strong focus. You can believe something firmly. But a clean lens is also willing to be cleaned further. If new information comes in that contradicts your view, do you engage with it or dismiss it?
The test isn't how confident you feel. The test is how you respond to correction.
This is the nihilism trap talking. And it usually comes from exhaustion or hurt, not from clear thinking.
Remember: a photograph isn't worthless just because it didn't capture the whole wedding. Your perspective has value. Your insights matter. They're truth—having flowed through you.
You don't need to see everything to see something real.
This is maybe the most practical application.
If truth flows through lenses, then different people at different angles will see different aspects of the same reality. Some of those angles might reveal things your angle missed. Some might be more distorted than yours.
Instead of: "They're wrong and I'm right" (inflation)
Or: "Who's to say who's right?" (nihilism)
Try: "What might their angle be showing that mine isn't?"
This isn't saying all perspectives are equal. A clean lens is better than a dirty one. But it IS saying you might learn something by looking.
This is important. Deep experiences—meditation, prayer, moments of awe, feeling connected to something larger—these are real. Don't dismiss them.
But when the experience becomes "I AM the universe" instead of "I experienced connection to something vast"—that's the lens thinking it's the light.
The experience is real.
The interpretation can still be wrong.
You can feel deeply connected to truth without claiming to BE truth. You can have profound experiences without inflating your ego. The lens can be clear and still know it's a lens.
If you ARE a lens, then you can be clearer or more distorted. What makes the difference?
You don't become the source of truth by cleaning your lens.
You become a clearer channel FOR truth.
That's the whole point.
You don't have to do all of this. But try one thing.
Some of you reading this are thinking: "Okay but what IS the light? What IS the source?"
That's a fair question. And I'll be honest with you.
In the framework this comes from, the source is called different things in different traditions: God, Truth, the Infinite, the Ground of Being, the Tao that can't be named.
I don't think you need to name it to benefit from this. The metaphor works whether you're religious, spiritual, or neither. What matters is the recognition that:
If you want to call that reality "God"—beautiful. If you want to call it "truth" or "what is"—also fine.
The practice is the same either way: be a cleaner lens.
Here's the beautiful paradox: the cleaner your lens gets, the more you can see.
And the more you can see, the more you realize how much more there is to see.
This isn't discouraging. It's the opposite. It means there's always more truth to receive. Always more clarity available. Always more to discover.
You thought you were reading about lenses and truth.
What you actually read was permission to matter without inflating,
and to be limited without despairing.
✦ Truth flows through you. That's enough. ✦