I guess perhaps the other side of truth -- however we communicate it -- is the willingness (is that a word, really?) to experience the effects if the truth as we speak it is something another does not wish to hear.

Well, this is a puzzle, because you have to ask, under what circumstances would someone really feel better not knowing how things are or were?

I don't mean the dramatic, social expression, "O, please, I'm sure I don't want to know" but in actuality, assuming one is not crippled emotionally, how would it come to pass that one would prefer not to know the way of things; because the obvious consequence of that choice is a preference for delusion.

Of course we all know people who are emotionally damaged, overwhelmed, weakened through drugs or biochemical causes, etc... -- perhaps this too is just a matter of degree, and we all have a truth threshold above which it requires too much attention, or too painful a re-thinking, or is too much for any iother reason, and we would rather shut it out even at the cost of not knowing.

This brings up an interesting thought, because it is one I have never seriously entertained before but am looking at seriously now: that both intentional truth and intention ignoral are virtues in their appropriate moments.

Maybe even intentional falsification...the most unacceptable conclusion, in some ways, but one that also deserves to be weighed.

I don't have facile answers but I am grateful to all of you for the opportunity to wrassle with these (I think) under-estimated issues.