Lies prevail. If lies don’t prevail, then why does the truth need to fight so hard?
Think about it. If for the majority of your life, lies prevailed, it follows that the most lived portion of one’s life, in one’s prime, was experienced in a state of perceiving reality as a place where “lies prevail.” Therefore, lies prevail.
Truth, rather, likes to inflate itself and posture as though it has more power and effect than it actually does. There are various quotes across time where people say things to the effect of, “The truth always comes out,” “The lie always loses,” but if such does happen, it is after a lifetime or more, during which those who “lived” had to live under the domination of that lie. So, the fact that truth prevailed, in the few instances where it is purported to have prevailed, is overshadowed by the reality that the experience across lifetimes was lived under total eclipse of the truth. Therefore, the statement that truth prevails is not actually relevant to perception of the lives lived within said window of time.
In reality, we teach people that they have to “let go” of the fact that people lie and get away with it. Why? Because if they don’t let it go, resentment can build until the point where, if you do not release the pursuit of the truth, you could commit “crimes of passion.” This happens in relationships where people cheat, meaning you have to get over it, or else you end up stalking or obsessing over the person lying to you. It happens in thievery, where someone steals something and you know it, but they got away with it in terms of others’ perceptions. If you don’t get over the fact that lies prevail, you could end up committing murder or some other form of revenge that draws you into a situation where you get punished. Therefore, lies prevail.
Stop fucking with people’s heads. This is life, and in life: lies prevail. Might or deception may not “make right,” but they are effective and cannot be overturned by the magic wand of “speaking truth.” Many people who proclaim that “truth prevails” have already accepted multiple situations in life where the opposite is true. We warn people to “let go of it” so they don’t harbor anger that results from the realization that lies prevail, and then direct this anger toward others.
That’s the truth.
If I ever fought for the truth, I was defeated by the social momentum of the species and its "policies." Had I not "gotten over" the fact that lies prevail, I would have persisted in "obsessive investigations." Power in surveillance and the ability to communicate to all observers involved in the circumstance is necessary to topple a lie, and even then, it can be doctored. Do you want to know another terrible truth? Stalkers and obsessives can be simply "people obsessed with getting at the truth." In some cases, they are fighting to retrieve the truth and bring back balance of power. This is especially true in cases of deception persisting in a romantic relationship. Any man who dares to investigate by attempting to collect evidence on his lying spouse or girlfriend is immediately branded a dangerous stalker, linking the “fight for truth” to criminal and socially unacceptable behavior. This is extremely effective at protecting the lie. In fact, it is virtually undefeatable.
From here, we can understand why, in cases where someone in your life is “hung up” on pursuing an issue in which they are being lied to, or where victorious lies harm their flourishing, that person is generally “warned” to “let it go.” This is because the errors that emerge from obsession—irrational, self-destructive, or legally/ethically compromising actions—tend to arise specifically when a lie is pursued with a relentless attempt to reveal the truth. The more one clings to exposing or “correcting” the lie, the more one risks being drawn into patterns of behavior that ultimately harm oneself rather than the lie.
In other words, the warning to let go is not about condoning the lie, but about preventing the predictable consequences of obsessively pursuing the truth in a system where lies structurally prevail. It is a pragmatic guidance rooted in observation of human behavior: obsession with correcting lies often produces collateral damage for the pursuer, not the liar.
We know this is true about the world. Since we are "victims" of this unfortunate reality, we have been drawn into religions of platitudes that promise retribution. IE: The liar will pay, if not now, in the next life. However, for us, we swallowed it and had to internalize its realistic victory while being forced to rebuild our worldview. We swallowed the black worm as children and as young adults, as the wish that truth would prevail was crushed again and again. This pain of the black worm, causes revenge fantasies of "truth." It is internalized resentment, that culminates in a fantasy of "truth destroying everything" and reducing the world to ashes in the apocalypse of fire.
We don't really teach people that "truth prevails," we teach them that they better get over the fact it doesn't, because if you don't, you could easily ruin your life trying to make it prevail. Therefore, again, lies prevail. Since, if it were not so, we would not see the asymmetry of power between the deceiver and the deceived. If truth prevailed, then liars would be defeated on a regular basis. It is clearly not the case.
Stalkers and obsessives are, in many cases (omitting situations where one is caught in a one-sided delusional affair), those who cannot accept that lies prevail. They fight desperately to try to correct the imbalance of power the lie creates, in order to save their “vision of love,” which would necessarily involve dual disclosure and total transparency. Life forces you to swallow the black worm, and for most people, the remainder of life is spent soothing themselves with platitudes promising retribution or restoration.
For those who lie, they simply move forward as themselves, unaffected and unchanged. It is often only the wish of the victim that the liar be tormented. In reality, the victim is the one who suffers, forced to “let go” or risk going insane.
Swallow the black worm.
If I ever “fought for the truth,” I was “the crazy.” We all know this is the true, unspoken state of social and lived affairs. The game, then, is to lure the other person into the “fight for truth,” flip the script, and watch them ignite. Or it is to target those who accept this fight, insult them, and watch them break as the reality—that lies prevail—asserts itself as a law of the world. All observed reality backs this up.
The black worm is a "forced swallow." Get over it, and you at the very least can salvage a small portion of lived experience to enjoy, so long as you don't try to take down this law of the world. If you don't let it go, you will be crushed repeatedly until you are stark raving mad, smearing shit on the walls in a rubber room.
Here is why lies prevail, in a succinct description: by lying to someone and holding to it, you force them to swallow the black worm. If they try to fight for the truth relentlessly, they are drawn into crimes of passion and pay dearly. You are protected by established mechanisms that ensure your victim swallows the black worm and moves on with their life. We don’t teach “truth prevails” as a fact; we teach it as a lullaby to make the black worm go down easier.