Sterling's Truths for Life #1

My wife is always right.

(HT: Unknown)

Explanation

Please note: This was, formerly, Sterling’s Truths for Life #2, but my wife said it should be #1. So…

Alright, it’s good for me to start with this one actually because it allows me, from the get-go, to demonstrate how my sense of truth is not quite straight or literal. Irony figures heavily into my sense of truth. I see this as a perfectly rational solution to the problem of maintaining sanity in a fallen world. The world is broken and therefore, truth claims are also slightly broken in the face of this. It’s not that I think there’s no objective truth as much as I think objective truth in terms of absolutes is as slippery as soap: the harder you try to hold on to such truth, the harder it becomes to hold on to anything.

So when I say, “My wife is always right,” it is literally possible for her to be wrong. However, for the purpose of saying something important, this is irrelevant. Functionally, this works very similar to writing software. When I write code and something does not work, the problem is my fault. That’s my operating assumption. That assumption is correct 999 times out of 1,000 (or something like that; it’s not like I have an empirical study). Sometimes, it’s a bug in some other developer’s code or some other even rarer cause, but that’s almost never the case.

In the case of my wife, there’s also an aspect of this that is aspirational. I aspire to think of her as always correct because I’m as much of a selfish bastard as you are and, of course, in my heart and brain my first thought is, “Oh, she is so wrong.” But then, when I’m being a good boy, I remind myself, “No, let’s assume she’s right and see where that leads my thoughts.” I need that reminder. And so, we have Sterling’s Truths for Life #1.

Part of the inspiration for this statement comes from a wonderful movie named Meet the Robinsons by Disney, which was inspired by a very odd book by William Joyce called A Day with Wilbur Robinson. I recommend both…

Franny: Just a little tip for the future, I am always right. Even when I’m wrong, I’m right.
Cornelius (Franny’s Husband): She’s right. I would just go with it if I were you…

Meet the Robinsons (2007) - Walt Disney Animation Studios