There are four or five stages in someone’s life – or at least, that I have encountered so far – about learning the reality about truth.

The first stage – which hopefully comes about at a young age – will be to learn that people lie. This can come as quite a revelation initially, perhaps when you catch yourself lying blatantly, many times for no apparent reason. One might lie about things that matter purposefully, or exaggerate some unimportant details mid-sentence only to be left wondering why soon afterwards.

 The second phase will be to understand that even your mother isn’t always right (sorry mum) and this is a notion that might take some time to sink in as you slowly ascend – many would argue descend – into adulthood. This might come as a shock initially, for golden were the years when one would simply have to ask a parent anything in order to acquire some presumable notion of absolute truth.

The third thing you’ll learn is that even the media can distort their scope on simple facts and understandings, which again, might come as a shock initially. To be young and naïve again. This one is a tricky one that could invite a never-ending rambling I am not willing to entertain anymore.

Fourth, even doctors – presumably some of the brightest people with some of the most reputable positions out there – can be quintessentially wrong. No one is safeguarded from not being able to shed light on the truth about something in their area of expertise; one is always hopeful when asking for a foolproof diagnosis only to be met with uncertainty. This intermittent lack of faith in some areas of science made me learn at a ripe age that the climb to the truth is a steep and never-ending one.

The fifth and arguably only true notion in this whole written ramble is that people are full of shit – myself included – and that the only certain truth in life is death.