Your truth is not the truth

I’ve got a confession.

A few years ago, I liked the phrase “my truth.”

It sounded thoughtful. Considered. Respectful.

It made space for people. It felt like progress.

Now?

I think it’s one of the most dangerous ideas in the world. And it's shaping the news, politics, even war...

It Sounds Kind. But It Isn’t.

“Speak your truth.”

We’ve all heard it. Probably said it.

It sounds like permission. Like empathy. Like we’re finally letting people be heard. But listen carefully to what it’s actually doing.

It’s replacing THE truth with a feeling.

Something testable with something untouchable. Because once something becomes your truth, it becomes immune to challenge.

And if it can’t be challenged, it can’t be wrong.

And that’s a problem.

We’ve Confused Two Very Different Things

There are two things happening in every situation:

• What actually happened
• How it felt

Both matter. But they are not the same.

Somewhere along the way, we decided they carry equal weight.

They don’t.

If I feel ignored in a meeting, that feeling is real. It doesn’t mean I was ignored.

And that gap matters. Because if we collapse it, we lose the ability to correct ourselves.

The Moment This Went Mainstream

You can trace a lot of this shift back to figures like Oprah Winfrey.

Her TV show elevated personal experience in a way that hadn’t been done before. Stories mattered more than statistics.

Feelings carried authority.

Again, that’s not inherently bad. But we didn’t stop at empathy. We handed over authority.

And that’s where it started to drift.

Then Politics Got Hold Of It

Enter Donald Trump.

He doesn’t argue like a traditional politician. He doesn't need to. He understands something deeper:

People don’t follow facts.

They follow feelings.

If something feels true, it doesn’t matter if it isn’t. Say it confidently enough. Repeat it often enough. Wrap it in identity.

And it sticks.

That’s not communication.

That’s manipulation.

And it works.

This Is Bigger Than One Politician

It’s easy to make this about Trump.

It’s not.

He’s a symptom, not the cause.

The real issue is that we’ve created an environment where emotional truth is rewarded more than factual truth.

Where being compelling beats being correct.

Where outrage spreads faster than accuracy.

And we all play a part in that.

Every share. Every like. Every “this feels right.”

We’re feeding it.

Here’s Where It Gets Uncomfortable

A society can handle disagreement. It cannot function without shared reality.

Let that sink in.

Everything we rely on assumes some baseline of truth:

• Courts
• Science
• Medicine
• Elections

Even something as simple as crossing the road. You trust that red means stop. Green means go (although cyclists have now made even this truth rough around the edges).

Now imagine everyone had their own version of that.

“My truth is that red means hurry up.”

You wouldn’t last the day. And London would grind to a halt.

Now Scale That Up

Because that’s exactly what we’re doing, just in less obvious ways.

Different groups:

• Different “facts” about elections
• Different “facts” about vaccines
• Different “facts” about climate

Not different opinions. Different realities.

And when realities diverge, compromise becomes impossible.

You can’t meet in the middle if you’re not standing on the same ground.

This Is How Bad Decisions Get Made

Especially the big ones. The irreversible ones.

Like war.

Decisions at that level are supposed to be grounded in evidence.

Intelligence. Verification. Challenge.

Now imagine those decisions filtered through emotional truth:

“We feel threatened.”
“We feel justified.”

No shared facts. Just competing narratives.

History has seen this before.

And it never ends well.

And Now We’ve Added AI To The Mix

Here’s the part that genuinely worries me. AI doesn’t care about truth.

It cares about what works. What gets engagement. What holds attention. What feels convincing.

It learns from us.

And right now, we’re teaching it that emotional resonance matters more than accuracy.

So what does it give us back?

More of the same. Better packaged. More personalised. More convincing.

We’re not just drifting away from shared reality. We’re automating the drift.

The Personalised Reality Problem

Imagine opening your phone and seeing a version of the world perfectly tailored to what you already believe.

Every article. Every video. Every argument.

All aligned. All reinforcing.

No friction. No challenge. No reason to doubt.

It feels great. But it’s also completely detached from reality. That’s the direction we’re heading. Not one shared world. But millions of individual ones.

Each internally consistent. Each emotionally satisfying.

None fully real.

Why This Is So Tempting

Because it’s easier.

Reality is messy. Complicated. Often uncomfortable.

Truth requires effort.

Checking sources. Holding uncertainty. Admitting you might be wrong.

Emotional truth asks for none of that.

Just feel it.

And in a world that’s fast, loud, and overwhelming, that’s incredibly appealing. But easy doesn’t mean safe.

This Isn't Just a Political Issue

It’s a human one.

We all want to feel understood.

We all want our experience to matter.

But there’s a line between validating someone’s feelings and validating their interpretation of reality.

We’ve blurred it.

And we’re paying for it.

A Better Way To Think About It

Try this instead:

• Your feelings are always valid
• Your interpretation might not be

That’s not dismissive. It’s honest. It allows empathy without giving up on truth.

And we need both.

The Real Danger

The scariest part of all this isn’t the loud stuff.

It’s the slow normalisation of:

• “That’s just your opinion” (when it isn’t)
• “Everyone has their own truth”
• “Facts don’t really exist anymore”

Say it often enough, and people stop pushing back.

They disengage.

And as I’ve written before, that disengagement is exactly how systems maintain themselves.

Not through force.

Through indifference.

You Don't Care?

What happens when we stop caring whether something is true? And I don't mean we stop disagreeing with someone or we stop debating with them. We just...stop caring.

Because that’s where this leads. This doesn't end with conflict. It ends with apathy.

And a population that doesn’t care about truth is incredibly easy to influence.

So What Do We Do?

This isn’t about becoming cold, hyper-rational machines.

It’s about drawing a line we’ve let slip.

Rebuilding a habit.

Caring, just a bit more, about what’s actually real.

We don’t need less empathy. We need more honesty.

Because without a shared sense of truth, everything else starts to break.

And by the time you notice, it’s already too late.

Until next time,

Jon "Truthsayer" Kaye

Choosing to live more deliberately