<![CDATA[Loïc's letter ]]>https://www.loiclemeur.comhttps://www.loiclemeur.com/img/substack.pngLoïc's letter https://www.loiclemeur.comSubstackMon, 13 Apr 2026 12:57:16 GMT<![CDATA[The Truth versus lies]]>https://www.loiclemeur.com/p/the-truth-versus-lieshttps://www.loiclemeur.com/p/the-truth-versus-liesTue, 31 Mar 2026 17:59:40 GMTLast week, I wrote for the first time in 1.5 years, “A Student of Wisdom”. I never write here more than once a week. If you want more, it’s in my journal. I wrote last week about “The great illusion of life and my words,” and about friendship. I asked, “Are friends tearing us away from ourselves?”

Thank you for your many comments and private emails. Keep them coming!

When a lie is obvious, we feel the Truth exists.

We all experienced lies; we know how they feel. We likely experienced lies on both sides, as a receiver and as a source, hopefully unconsciously. We might have just repeated something not true because we did not know.

For example, I ordered a product and paid 100% of the price. It was never delivered to me, and it has been six months. The supplier kept telling me it was coming until he finally admitted the truth, that he used my money for something else and did not pay his own supplier, which is why I did not get the product. The lie was obvious (the product did not come), and the truth was finally said.

We live in a world of lies. Just look at what our elected politicians are; they are professional liars and machines promising what they generally never deliver, and often deliver the opposite.

I already wrote about a simple business example; it is common. Advertising is mostly a lie, showing people only what they want to hear and hiding any issues with the products or services.

The truth (I am not using a capital “T” by design) is rare. Add AI-generated content to that, and now news and social media are flooded mostly with lies. Instagram is full of posts of people showing their beautiful lives (or even faking them) while they are desperate or empty inside.

The bigger the outside show, the highest emptiness or depression inside.

I have been there; I haven’t been immune either, and being conscious of it is step one, which is why I don’t post much on social media anymore.

Why so many lies?

I feel that it’s childhood programming. It’s based on fear. Fear of not being good enough, not successful enough, not wealthy enough, etc. It started with our parents telling us our school marks weren’t good enough or that we misbehaved, sometimes with associated punishments. This fear carries through our whole life if we don’t become aware of it.

We exaggerate success (or even fake it), reframe stories, and minimize failures, all because of fear.

If everyone and every business does it, is that the only solution to live in this society to do the same? I want to believe there is another way.

The truth versus the Truth

At first, the truth seems obvious, doesn’t it?

2+2 = 4. Fire is hot, and ice is cold. This table is strong (quantum physics says there is no table if I understood well). I graduated from that business school.

All ancient texts tell us that saying the truth is essential, and we all agree with that, yet most people prefer lies.

The truth is often inconvenient, rude, brutal.

source: truths lies cartoon

I have told people several times, “This is a lie,” and it ends badly in most cases.

Many people aren’t able to receive the truth and prefer to stay with everyone’s lies, often their own. I am trying to see my own constantly.

Silence is often a good choice rather than saying the truth to avoid people getting angry or… losing friends you care about. I encourage you to read “The Courage to be Disliked,” which I have read a few times and will read again, helping you say things as they are when you accept that losing friends is okay.

Is there only one Truth, or does everyone have some version of it?

In other words, is the expression “You have your Truth, and I have mine”, which I heard many times, a common answer, valid?

The common ground in philosophy is that there is only one Truth, says my friend who teaches philosophy.

This also feels true to me. We are all able to distinguish between truth and falsehood. We might fail, but we can.

Learning to be silent is safer than saying the truth. Silence also speaks.

Nobody is here to really tell you what to do, says Krishnamurti.

Why should we trust what anybody says? “I think that the psychological or religious guidance is totally wrong,” says Krishnamurti while giving guidance himself! To be fair, he constantly repeats not to trust him either, and I often listen to his talks; he speaks truth to me, especially when it is inconvenient.

The world believed the Earth was flat for longer than it believed it wasn’t.

AI said, “The Earth as a sphere was discovered by Ancient Greek philosophers, starting with Pythagoras in the 6th century BC, and confirmed by Aristotle in the 4th century BC through empirical evidence. By 240 BC, Eratosthenes had accurately calculated the Earth's circumference, and educated people have widely understood the Earth is a sphere for over 2,000 years.”

What is 2,000 years at the scale of humanity? The first homo sapiens would have evolved in Africa 300,000 years ago. The universe would be 13.8 billion years old; what is 2,000 years?

Who knows? With the pace at which science evolves, we will likely discover major lies we still believe in. Or maybe technology is just making the lies worse, or both at the same time. It has never been as easy as today to manipulate the masses.

The Truth

AI says:

“Most traditions locate Truth not as a proposition but as a state of being or direct experience — something approached through purification, practice, or grace, not argument.

  • The Hindu Sat (pure Being) is Truth

  • The Buddhist Dharma is the nature of things as they actually are

  • The Taoist Te is alignment with what’s real

  • The Jewish Emet (truth) is one of the pillars holding up the world

  • Christ says I am the Truth — Truth is personal, not abstract

  • The Islamic Haqq is simultaneously Truth and one of the 99 names of God

The consensus: Truth is not just known — it is lived, embodied, or encountered.”

I fully agree with this last statement. The Truth cannot be put into words; it has to be experienced.

As far as I am concerned, I experience it in nature, rarely with humans or in a city. In other words, I love being in nature because it is the truth. I prefer watching a sunrise to taking the best Instagram shot of it, even though I sometimes do. I prefer sitting with a tree and watching how it grows, especially the older ones; it is the truth.

I also like working with the indigenous despite encountering many human lies, too, but they can be honest lies. They generally don’t explain what a ceremony is or what their songs do; they invite you to experience them and possibly sing them. Same with Kirtan or Buddhist mantras.

I have learned to sing, and I am still learning many indigenous songs. When I sing, I feel that “Truth” and don’t need to explain it to myself. If I feel good, I sing; if I feel “bad”, I sing too. The ancient songs feel true to me and bring me that feeling. That is enough for me to reconnect with the “Truth”, whatever it might be.

I am curious to read what you think about lies and truth. Please comment or email me back if you'd like.

Becoming aware of this truth versus lies makes speaking and writing very difficult. Even though I prefer learning from my own experiences, especially when I say something “wrong”, I also like to read.

I have only read two good books about “right speech” or how to speak. Do you have any other good books you recommend? I prefer philosophy or ancient knowledge to psychology, even though that is sometimes good too. Thanks!

]]><![CDATA[A Student of Wisdom]]>https://www.loiclemeur.com/p/a-student-of-wisdomhttps://www.loiclemeur.com/p/a-student-of-wisdomSun, 22 Mar 2026 18:04:18 GMTHello friend,

Yes, this is a newsletter, but you are a human being, and so am I. I am not using any AI to write this. I write as I would talk to you if we met in person today.

I cannot forget that behind an email newsletter, there is just you and me.

Some kind of magic happened that you are still receiving and perhaps reading this, and the same kind of magic makes me write to you today, after a year and a half of silence.

I just miss writing.

A friend reminded me recently that it was nice for him when I wrote, so here I am. If it helps anyone, it is worth writing. I love writing, so at least it helps me to reflect on my life. Hopefully, you find something valuable in it, too.

By all means, hit the reply button and give me some news too.

Oh and if you wish to unsubscribe the link is at the bottom, pardon the intrusion if it feels out of place and I will never write to you again. I am not trying to sell anything or convince you of anything. I am just sharing a bit of what I am learning.

In fact, one of the reasons I stopped writing is the realization that I should not give advice to anyone if I cannot live by every word I write. This is a very ambitious goal in my writing, so humility is absolutely key. I am learning that too and will write about it.

I am not perfect either, who is really?

What is “perfect” anyway? I feel that nature is perfect in all its manifestations, a tree seems always absolutely perfect to me, even if it grows sideways.

Maybe everyone is perfect, even those I see as evil, like those behind the current wars. They all have excellent reasons to do what they do. Maybe everything is divine will, and the apparent chaos the world is in is also absolutely perfect. I don’t know.

I won’t be too long today. I just wanted to say hi and say that I am going to write again, possibly every Sunday here, and more frequently in my journal.

In the eyes of many, I have undergone a strong transformation over the last 10 years, and I have accumulated so-called “spiritual experiences” almost full-time.

Vipassana 10-day silent meditations, countless and sometimes absolutely extreme rituals and ceremonies of all kinds with numerous indigenous tribes and powerful plants in the Amazon jungle, Africa, but also in the western world, often with indigenous leaders living in slums or near homeless themselves.

I almost died, maybe at least ten times, I can remember.

I definitely learned a lot. I went beyond myself and beyond any conditioning I had accumulated all my life, somewhat beyond material life, and I discovered people, practices, and ways of living I had no idea existed.

The contrast with my past life as a technology entrepreneur “in the matrix” has been so violent that it has not been very easy to balance. It has honestly been extremely difficult.

Most of the rituals I have participated in, and sometimes learned to offer myself in, have been strong and transformative, but also “secret.”

“What is secret is sacred and what is sacred is secret,” told me once a great teacher.

I got in trouble countless times with both indigenous people and people from the material world, in which I was born.

I also made countless mistakes as an entrepreneur before; mistakes are good for learning, sometimes in the hardest way. The worst mistakes are the best teachers. There are many mistakes I would have preferred avoiding, had I known the consequences or what I was getting into.

Now it is done, and I am still here. Breathing.

I learned silence and respecting secrets, this is why I archived all my previous newsletters, hundreds. This makes writing and talking, even thinking, tricky.

Thoughts are the origin of everything. When I turn a thought into words, I know the consequences now, so I try to be careful.

“How do you spell it?”

This says it all, when I say something, or I write something, it is a “spell”, so I’d better be careful with my intention behind it; it has to always be with a good intention.

In the same way, when I listen to anyone or read anything, I am being influenced and often manipulated. I can now feel much more than before the energy of someone next to me without a word or read on his or her face, and especially his or her eyes, information I wasn’t perceiving before.

It is both a gift and a curse. I will take it as a gift and improve myself enough so that the “curse” becomes a gift too.

A shaman, as people say in the Western world, told me once, “We don’t give this plant to many people because they aren’t ready to see what it lets you see,” and “it is a permanent modification of the Self, not just another experience. It is there for life.” Truth. I wasn’t ready. It is done. Maybe I was, I will never know.

I have worked a lot on my ego; I successfully became nobody in many ways, until I became somebody again. Them nobody again. It is an infinite loop, and I still fall into the trap, as ego is useful if you don’t want to be a monk (which I highly respect).

My email inbox is very light, and so are my WhatsApp messages. I only occasionally check social media, as the manipulation there, especially with the growth of AI, is exponential and affecting me deeply.

Another teacher told me,

“After this, you will be more and more alone and won’t want to talk to anyone.”

This “spell” became definitely true, so after a year and a half of near silence and learning to live more and more alone, sometimes feeling like a hermit, happy mostly in nature with birds, trees, and native indigenous, I felt it was time to heal this too.

So here I am.

The rituals and ceremonies do not matter that much in the end; what matters is how I transform, live my life, and interact with others.

Why else do all this work? Life is the ceremony.

I wonder what I am coming back with? Well, I feel like a student of wisdom.

I am saying "a student" because I keep learning so much from my indigenous friends and everyone, really. Everyone has some wisdom to share, even when it is hard to see. When someone “triggers me,” it is a gift, as it reveals something in me that I need to work on.

I am a student of life and will write as such.

In fact, the more I progress, the more I realize I know nothing. It is with great effort that I decided to write again. Why share anything if I cannot apply all the lessons from what I learned to myself?

Well, as you well know, it is hard. Wisdom is hard. I am not a monk and likely will never be. I am still in many ways imperfect, but I feel more and more aware of what I still need to fix. I am now really interested in human connections again, while continuing my work as a student with nature and indigenous peoples.

We all have an opportunity to reinvent ourselves each day we wake up. We have an opportunity to be a better person and a better soul every single day we get to live this magical life.

I don’t see any other point in life than constantly improving ourselves.

Thanks for reading. I wish you all a great week.

Share any thoughts with me about this or about yourself by replying; I will read them.

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