When Personal Experience Challenges “Official” Truth

One day after MMA practice, a severe pain seized my thigh muscle. I couldn’t move.

I tried everything—creams, cold therapy, heat therapy, NSAIDs. Nothing worked. Then I found an old cream buried in my closet. Copper was its main active ingredient. I applied it, and within minutes, the pain dropped by 50%. A couple of hours later, I applied more. The pain nearly disappeared. By the next day, after one final application, it was gone completely.

The cream had worked. I was certain of it.

Curious about the mechanism behind its effectiveness, I asked ChatGPT to explain how copper could have healed my muscle. To my surprise, the response was dismissive: copper creams don’t work, shouldn’t work, and any relief I felt was merely placebo effect.

I was stunned. I had experienced the healing firsthand. No one—not even an AI backed by supposedly authoritative sources—could convince me otherwise.

That’s when the realization hit me.

Truth should never be owned by a single source.

There is profound danger in allowing a few entities to control “truth” and define reality. When this happens, the world begins operating in service of their interests—even when those interests cause harm to everyone else.

Consider this scenario: Imagine two groups of people. One group thrives on fish—it gives them energy, strength, and immunity. The other group is allergic to fish and thrives on wheat. Now imagine the wheat consumers control the narrative about truth. They could convince the fish eaters that fish is harmful and that the wheat they use as bait should instead be grown for direct consumption.

Once truth is corrupted, the fish eaters begin eating wheat and suffer declining health, while the wheat eaters grow stronger and healthier. The tragic irony? The fish eaters are the ones growing the wheat. Eventually, the wheat eaters become so dominant—so much smarter and stronger—that they no longer need to expend any energy growing their own food. They simply consume what others produce, while the fish eaters become their slaves.

This is the cost of surrendered truth.

When we outsource our understanding of reality to single sources—however credible they claim to be—we risk losing our ability to recognize what serves us and what harms us. Truth must remain open, contestable, and rooted in diverse evidence, including our own lived experience.

The Truth is subjective. The Truth is personal.

Every experience is unique. What one couple considers profound love, others might recognize as manipulation, domination, or even abuse. What one nation celebrates as peace, another group experiences as terror and suppression.

To live an authentic life, you must develop your own understanding of right and wrong. This doesn’t mean rejecting all outside information—media, governments, and even AI can offer valuable perspectives. But they should inform your thinking, not replace it.

The truth is within you.

Trust your experience. Question every narrative. Weigh the evidence. And ultimately, think for yourself.

And always remember

What they tell you on screen or in books isn’t necessarily wrong—it’s simply optimized for their reality. If you share their biology, their circumstances, their interests, then their truth may serve you well. But if you don’t belong to their group, their truth may harm you while benefiting them.
If you’re a wheat eater in a wheat eater’s world, their guidance serves you. But if you’re a fish eater being fed wheat eater wisdom, their truth becomes your poison.