In this essay, we examine how the inner shift that begins the moment a society defines itself through power becomes bound to the same law at both collective and individual scales, through the example of the people of Hud (peace be upon him); for every great structure human beings establish in history is nothing other than the outward form assumed by a fragile order shaped within their inner world; in this context, the story of Hud carries an unchanging principle, in the form mentioned; and when read from this perspective, it bears meaning.
The rise and fall of societies must be read as magnified reflections of the mechanisms established within the topography of the individual mind; in this sense, the peoples who disappeared from the stage of history, and among them the people of Hud, are narratives that record not only what occurred externally, but also the inner blindness of the human being.
Here, we will not restate the story of Hud. To recall the narrative, it is sufficient to return to the source.
In this essay, while explaining matters partially derived from the story of Hud, we open the context by designating it "the people."Unless otherwise stated, "the people" in this essay refers to the people of Hud.
When a people begins to regard crude dominance as its own essence (ousia), the voice of truth narrows, and truth returns from places never accounted for, doing what it must do until destruction; this is the principal point we draw from the narrative.
We begin by repeating the principal point: When a people begins to regard crude and in fact relative dominance as its own essence (ousia), the voice of truth narrows; this is the principal point we draw from the narrative. And in light of this principal point, it must first be stated that the narrowing of truth is subject to the same law as the psychological resistance experienced when truth reaches the modern human. As the power one assumes one possesses increases, one begins to perceive warnings as threats; as the threat is magnified, perceptual defense mechanisms are activated. Yet this defense, though it appears to construct security externally, produces an increasingly hardened form of internal resistance. As resistance intensifies, the contact of truth becomes sharper, and this sharpness leaves the human being no option but to confront the petrified side that demands a blow. In the historical narrative, a people's belittling of warning shares the same psychological quality as the rationalization reflex experienced by the individual today when truth reaches the modern human; for the human being attempts to render bearable the truth one cannot carry by diminishing it. This diminishment often begins to operate as intellectual deviation: the person chooses not correctness, but the interpretation that will provide comfort. Thus, the warning ceases to be merely an external word and becomes an internal representation; and as this representation is repressed, the principle of reality weakens. Every weakened principle, in turn, renders the inner structure more vulnerable to greater shocks.
The illusion once held by the people, "our structures are eternal," is no different from the false integrity modern humans construct through inner monologues such as "my order cannot collapse." This integrity, though offering apparent stability, is in fact a defensive architecture that produces emotional deprivation and inner disconnection. While one assumes self-protection, one is, in truth, postponing contact with the truth. Yet postponed truth accumulates and grows heavier, and every truth that grows heavy returns as a more definitive mirror.
The people's taking the approaching wind to be a "cloud of mercy" is likewise a historical example of the perceptual distortion experienced when truth reaches the modern human. One sees what one wishes to see; one hears what one wishes to hear. Because of this selective perception, the individual characterizes one's inner pressure as a "temporary state," spiritual tension as "fatigue," and the warning of "exaggeration." Thus, the truth does not become invisible; it merely withdraws behind the curtain of misnaming. But as the curtain thins, the real touch becomes harder and sharper. In this respect, the people's inner march toward destruction in the narrative and the psychological shock that arises when truth reaches the modern human rest upon the same principle.
Collapse does not come from outside; the human being is crushed beneath the hardened defense developed against a truth one cannot carry, however, this is what occurs.
As we stated earlier, the greater the external (exo) magnificence of a society, the thinner the voice of truth becomes, for the illusion of power embedded in one's inner architecture becomes a veil that narrows sensory perception. This veil neither forms nor disappears suddenly; it is the result of habitual mental closure. The mind classifies everything that threatens the order it has constructed as "excessive," "unnecessary," or "inappropriate," and this classification is among the primary defenses that emerge when truth reaches the modern human.
What it meant for the people to say to the Prophet "Mad, liar, corrupter" is identical to the modern human saying to one's own inner intuition, "You're exaggerating, this is unnecessary sensitivity, life is like this"; for in both cases what appears is not the weight of truth, but the defensive reflex of a self unable to carry that weight. When one does not wish to hear the truth, one first diminishes the speaker; then narrows the meaning of the word; and thereafter produces rationalization within one's own mind to neutralize it. This rationalization, as known in psychology, is a regulatory mechanism used by the individual to reduce inner tension. Yet, although it appears to reduce tension, it does nothing but postpone the weight one cannot carry.
For this reason, a mind that perceives warning as threat assumes that belittling the speaker protects it. Yet what is diminished is not the truth, but one's own capacity to bear. The aggressive tone in people's accusations against their prophet is identical to the inner noise modern humans use to suppress the call of conscience when truth arrives. As noise increases, internal representation becomes blurred; as it blurs, the phase of resistance hardens; and this hardening becomes visible only through a major fracture.
The fundamental motivation behind the monumental structures that became displays of power for the people in the narrative is the same as the false architecture of security that modern humans build through success, status, titles, and identity. As one gathers power externally, one becomes fragile internally; for external security does not fill the inner void, it merely renders it invisible. Every mechanism that renders the void invisible delays the encounter with the truth, and a delayed encounter returns in a sharper form (morphe).
The people's meeting of warning with mockery is the most refined form of perceptual defense. Mockery makes denial appear elegant; elegance conceals the harshness of rejection. When truth reaches the modern human, and one says, "this has no meaning," "this feeling is unnecessary," "I already know this," it is the inner form of the same mocking diminishment. Yet unless one equates knowing with transformation, hearing truth produces only temporary awareness. Awareness increases, but transformation does not occur; the untransformed individual turns knowledge into a form of defense.
Thus, when the people boasted, "none stronger than us is created," the psychological ground is the same as that on which the modern human reassures oneself, "I can continue this life as it is." Confidence emerges not from openness to truth, but often from the repression of inner anxiety. Repressed anxiety returns under suitable conditions, and when it returns, it is no longer a warning; it is a state, a shock, a confrontation.
The people's belittlement of warning and the resistance that arises when truth reaches the modern human are two different appearances of the same condition: both reject not truth itself, but the change that truth will bring. For the human being fears not change itself, but the exposed space that change opens. This is what must be understood.
It is evident that the human being does not fail to hear the voice of truth because it is inaudible, but because one raises inner noise at the very point where one does not wish to hear it. A people's mistaking an approaching calamity for "mercy" is a historical manifestation of the selective perception (aisthesis) that appears when truth reaches the modern human; for the mind, to preserve its own order, prefers not reality itself but the interpretation of reality that does not threaten it. This preference is not a fall, but an attempt to stabilize the mind's topography.
The people's relaxation despite warning and the modern individual's labeling of inner pressure as "fatigue," "a temporary state," or "emotional noise" are two scenes of the same perceptual defense. Such naming indicates situations in which repression and rationalization are active; the human being uses thought as a barrier against emotion to soften the perception of threat. As the barrier grows, truth narrows; as truth narrows, inner tension becomes invisible; and what becomes invisible always returns more harshly.
The people's belittling discourse toward their prophet is, in fact, a defensive reflex produced by a mind unable to carry its own fears. When truth reaches the modern human, and one calls one's own intuition "wrong," "exaggerated," or "overly sensitive," it is the psychological form of the same inner defense. The human being rejects not correctness, but the responsibility that correctness would impose. Rejected responsibility later produces unconscious guilt, which becomes a fragmented trace of resistance within the individual's behavioral pattern.
For this reason, the most evident sign of a society's march toward destruction is not the diminishment of the voice of truth, but the beginning of perceiving that voice as a threat. The same holds for the modern human: when truth arrives, one first withdraws, then opposes, and then enters the process of "normalization," the refined form of denial.
Normalization is the ordinary-making of inner pain through behavioral assimilation; yet pain that becomes ordinary does not disappear, it merely changes its visibility.
In the narrative, the people's seeing the approaching wind as "mercy" rests on the same psychological mechanism as the modern individual softening a challenging inner call by saying, "I can overcome this; nothing will happen to me." In both cases, the human being conceals not the weight of truth, but a consciousness narrowed to the point of being unable to bear it. Narrowed consciousness appears as confidence; yet this confidence is, in fact, a fragile shield erected to prevent the fragmentation of inner representation. A society's blindness to destruction draws from the same ground as the modern individual's legitimizing inner confusion, which says, "This is who I am." This legitimization is among the subtlest defenses of the mind, for it does not present the wrong as right; it merely reduces the visibility of the wrong. Reduced visibility increases the potential for fracture.
Thus, the reason both people and modern humans begin to misread truth is not that truth changes, but that the mode of reading becomes corrupted. Where one sees what one wishes to see, the warning of truth weakens; as warning weakens, resistance strengthens; and as resistance strengthens, collapse becomes inevitable. This is what must be understood.
As observed, the most common defense the human being develops against truth is to belittle the warning; for what is belittled is not the truth itself, but the transformation to which truth would compel the human being. When a people says to their prophet, "Your words have no effect on us," it is psychologically identical to the modern individual saying, "This feeling will not change my life." In both cases, what appears is the phase of resistance of a consciousness unwilling to bear the weight of truth.
Belittlement may appear externally as confidence, but at the level of internal representation, it is the fusion of repression and rationalization. When a person perceives a threat, they first devalue the source of the threat; devaluation is the foremost layer of perceptual defense. Yet this defense does not halt the arrival of truth; it merely delays it. And delayed truth always arrives heavier.
The magnificence that the people constructed with lofty pillars is the outward form (morphe) of the false structures of security that the modern human builds within the architecture of the mind through concepts such as "status, success, power, self-sufficiency." These structures both protect the individual's narcissistic wound and render one's own fragility invisible. Every fragility that remains invisible becomes, over time, an inner crack. And when the crack grows, the first thing it encounters is truth. This contact of truth is not an attack, but the return of the inner voice that the human being has neglected for years.
When truth reaches the modern human and the person tries to convince themselves by saying, "this is how life flows, everyone behaves this way," this is known in psychology as the tendency to legitimize the behavioral chain. Yet, the legitimized mechanism is, in fact, a repackaged form of a defense mechanism. Thus, the person conceals inner fragility under the name of "normal." Normalized distortion, in turn, is the most insidious dynamic accelerating the collapse of both the individual and society. People's response to the warning in a mocking tone corresponds to the modern individual speaking lightly of oneself when truth arrives; mockery is the most refined form of defense. The one who mocks is, in reality, not prepared to carry inner pain. For this reason, mockery functions as a form of intellectual deviation: the weight of the truth is enlightened, yet what is enlightened is not the weight itself but the responsibility of carrying it. In the society's statement in the narrative, "No harm will come to usé", is a historical projection of the modern individual's inner dialogue: "This feeling will not shake me." Yet the sentences a person speaks to oneself are often products of ego defense; they are not adaptations to reality but escapes from reality.
As the escape continues, the person accumulates within one's own psukhe a constantly postponed confrontation. Every accumulated confrontation returns as a delayed reckoning.
Therefore, we must say that the failure of the people---and in a broader sense, of the individual---to change despite warning does not arise from the weakness of the warning but from the hardening of the inner structure. The individual sanctifies the hardened structure under names such as "order, stability, character"; yet this sanctification is nothing more than naming a curtain that conceals decay. As the curtain thins, truth becomes visible, and every visible truth shatters the illusion the human being holds about oneself.
In this respect, it is clear that what determines the approach of the people, and of the modern human, to destruction is not an external event but the unnoticed state of inner loss. The human being diminishes the truth one cannot carry, and when that diminished truth returns, one mistakes it for a "sudden collapse." Yet collapse is not sudden; it is the weight of accumulated resistance, released at once. This is what must be understood.
The most critical breaking point in relation to the truth is when the truth ceases to be merely a word and becomes a state; for a word may be repressed, postponed, reinterpreted, but a state, bypassing the defenses of consciousness, touches the field of inner representation directly. The people's confrontation with the storm, lasting seven nights and eight days, is the magnified form of the sudden inner upheaval that appears when the ruth reaches the modern human. This upheaval is not an external attack; it is the weight of accumulated internal resistance over years, even if only relative.
Truth does not usually arrive as a subtle call, as the human being assumes; when the call is not heard, the tone of truth changes: from discomfort, to unease, to pressure, and finally to rupture. These stages are explained in psychology as the progressive hardening of the phase of resistance: for every repressed warning, the force to return grows. The intense inner constriction felt by the modern individual when truth arrives is precisely the attempt of these repressed pains to surface.
If the people's mistaking the approaching wind for "mercy" was a tragic perceptual error, the modern human's classifying inner upheaval as "stress," "fatigue," or "temporary mood" is the same error. Though such classification may appear to be the success of perceptual defense, in reality, it serves no function other than masking inner tensions. Masked tension accumulates in the weakest links of the behavioral chain, and the person feels those links break at the least expected moment.
Whereas people in the narrative perceived warnings as threats, the modern human, when truth arrives, pushes away the inner call by labeling it "too emotional," "overly sensitive," or "inappropriate." This pushing away is the fallen psukhe's attempt to protect itself; yet what is protected is not truth but the fragile structure of the self. Because the human being regards the possibility of fracture as a threat, one attempts to postpone contact with the truth. Yet postponed truth grows stronger, and when strengthened truth returns, it is no longer a warning but a climate.
The toppling of the magnificent pillar-built structures of the people by the wind is analogous to the disintegration of the false integrity that the modern human has accumulated over the years through inner shock. This disintegration does not arise, as the person assumes, from sudden changes in external conditions; it arises from the inner structure losing its endurance under long-carried tension. Much of what is called self-confidence is in fact only a thin covering laid over an inner crack.
What determines a society's approach to destruction is not that the warning is unheard, but that it is heard and yet not taken into account; likewise, when truth reaches the modern human, the mechanism is the same when the person says, "I have heard this, I know," yet does not act.
Therefore, what a human being perceives as collapse does not arise from the weight of truth, but from the collapse of the resistance one has accumulated. When resistance collapses, the person assumes "I have fallen"; yet what collapses is not the human being, but the false supports one has constructed about oneself. The greatest clarity experienced when truth reaches the modern human is precisely this: not destruction, but the call of the real essence (ousia) that appears behind destruction.
When truth does not arrive as a word, it comes as a climate, as a world; a word may be postponed, but a world cannot be postponed. When the world arrives, defenses collapse; when defenses collapse, the human being is called back to one's own center. The one who hears this call is saved; the one who cannot hear it becomes compressed under the weight of one's own delay. This is what must be understood.
On the other hand, it must be noted that the human being does not fail to hear truth; rather, at the very moment of hearing it, one denies having heard it because one is not ready to bear the transformation it requires. Just as a people saying to their prophet, "your word finds no response among us," so too when truth reaches the modern human, and the person says, "this feeling tells me nothing," it is the same; for denial is not the rejection of truth, but the rejection of the naked space truth opens. The human being does not fear transformation, but the emptiness that transformation will reveal.
The subtlest form of denial is presenting one's own defense as logic. In the narrative, the people's saying to the prophet, "You speak irrationally," corresponds to the modern individual's saying, upon the arrival of truth, "I am rational; these emotions have no validity." This pattern is the sharpest form of rationalization: the mind protects not truth, but the self-image threatened by truth. The more fragile the protected image, the more aggressive the defensive tone becomes. When defense grows aggressive, the voice of the truth is not silenced; rather, the mind creates a level at which it can no longer hear it. This situation is considered an advanced stage of perceptual defense in psychology. The human being attempts to neutralize inner discomfort with expressions such as "insignificant," "temporary," or "the natural flow of life"; yet what is neutralized is not the discomfort itself but the awareness it produces. As awareness is repressed, inner representation becomes blurred.
People's perception of warnings as threats and modern humans' feeling of conscience as an "obstacle" when truth arrives both arise from the same tendency: humans resist truth out of fear of losing something. As resistance increases, the mind hardens; as hardening deepens, flexibility is lost; and when flexibility is lost, the person approaches the most fragile point of one's own psychic architecture. At that point, even the slightest contact with truth may produce a tremor.
The people's inability to perceive the approaching calamity is analogous to the modern human's legitimizing an inner wound by saying, "This is just how I am," for legitimization is the quietest defense that prevents decay from being noticed. Decay does not change its boundaries; it merely reduces its visibility. Reduced visibility leads the individual to normalize one's own inner darkness, and normalized darkness eventually returns as rupture.
The more the human being rejects truth, the harsher its return becomes. The wind's sudden destructive force in the narrative is identical to the sudden rising of emotions long repressed when truth reaches the modern human. This rising is not the result of external pressure, but of emotional residue accumulated within and rendered unbearable. As the residue grows, the person feels as though they are experiencing a "sudden collapse"; yet, collapse itself is not sudden; only its visibility is sudden.
The people's failure to change despite all warnings corresponds to modern humans postponing their inner call by saying, "It will pass with time." Postponement is the most insidious defense of the psukhe; for every postponed truth returns carrying greater weight. The human being tends to attribute this weight to external events; yet what appears externally is merely the delayed dissolution of what is taking the stage.
Thus, we must admit that both society and the individual collapse not because they do not hear the truth, but because they have lost the inner ground capable of carrying it. When the ground is lost, truth appears as an enemy; yet hostility is not produced by truth, but by a self estranged from truth. This is what must be understood.
One of the clearest signs that a society is approaching destruction is that it begins to regard its own condition as "normal"; for every distortion rendered ordinary produces a decay nourished by the absence of awareness. When the truth reaches the modern human and the person labels inner fatigue as "this is just my character," "I have always felt this way," this, too, is the individual form of the same decay. Such labels are defenses the psyche uses to create an illusion of stability; yet what is taken for stability is often merely emotional numbness.
Just as a people in the narrative saying, "this is how we came and this is how we go," so too when truth reaches the modern human and the person says, "this is the order of my life, I do not need to change it," the same mechanism is revealed: the human being uses habit as armor against truth. Habit does not make what is wrong appear right; rather, it erases its visibility. Every wrong whose visibility is erased deepens, and what, one day, confronts the human being as an unavoidable reckoning.
People's perception of warnings as threats corresponds to modern humans' sense of conscience as "an unnecessary noise that disturbs me"; when the mind does not wish to turn toward the inner call, it interprets it as an intellectual deviation. Yet the deviation is not the feeling itself, but the distortion created by the resistance accompanying the feeling. As resistance increases, the human being compresses their inner architecture; compressed architecture produces tremors even at the slightest vibration.
The accusation the people direct toward their prophet, "You have brought us harm," corresponds to the modern human attributing inner unrest to external conditions when the truth arrives. In psychology, this is called externalization: a person relocates the source of inner pain elsewhere because they do not wish to see it within themselves. Yet the pain that is relocated does not dissolve at its site; only its visibility changes. Changed visibility prepares the ground for pain to grow silently.
People's boasting that "our order is solid" corresponds to modern humans' reassuring themselves, "my life is on track"; yet this confidence largely rests on an ego-integrity functioning as a defense. The self produces a series of behavioral chains to conceal its fragility: repressing emotions, belittling the inner call, excessive rationalization, and ignoring overlooked signs. Yet all these chains do not prevent the touch of truth. What is prevented is only the timing of confrontation.
As common as it is for the human being to interpret the moment one cannot carry oneself as an external catastrophe, it is equally common to ignore the internal preparation period of that catastrophe. The destruction the people perceived as "sudden" in the narrative was, in fact, the outward manifestation of years of inner blindness. When truth reaches the modern human and the person says, "I fell apart all at once," this too is a misreading; what falls apart is not the person, but the false stability constructed about oneself.
Thus, we must admit that what determines a society's approach to destruction is not the noise outside, but the loss of silence within. When the mind loses inner silence, it can no longer feel its root, and every structure that cannot feel its root is vulnerable even to the slightest wind. What the modern human most experiences when truth arrives is precisely this: the weight produced by estrangement from one's own inner center.
As understood, neither the destruction of the people nor that of the individual comes from outside; destruction is the collapse under its own weight of delayed defenses accumulated against truth. The human being attributes collapse to truth; yet what collapses is not truth, but the mind that cannot carry truth.
The moment a society approaches destruction is when it begins to see its own habits as right; for habit is the most insidious curtain that obscures the visibility of wrong. In the narrative, a people sanctifying behavioral patterns sustained for years as the "way of the ancestors" corresponds to the modern individual legitimizing one's existing psychological patterns by saying, when truth arrives, "this is who I am, this is my nature." This legitimization is the defense reflex produced by the psukhe when it perceives change as a threat.
Because humans fear the uncertainty that transformation brings, one assumes the existing order to be strong. Yet what is assumed to be strength is often rigidity as an ego architecture that has lost its flexibility. The hardened mind interprets even the slightest change in the external world as a threat; as threat perception increases, perceptual defense is activated.
As defense intensifies, it narrows the mind's topography; a narrowed topography makes the contact with truth feel harsher.
For this reason, the people's confidence in "Nothing will happen to us" is built on the same psychological ground as the modern individual's saying, when truth reaches him, "This feeling cannot shake me; I am a strong person." This confidence is nourished not by genuine resilience but by rationalizations developed to avoid confronting inner distortions. Every statement, enlarged by rationalization, becomes a shield that conceals the weakness of inner representation. As the shield strengthens, the self becomes more fragile.
Just as the people's clinging to magnificent pillars delayed collapse, the artificial integrity modern humans build through external elements such as status, success, titles, and social visibility also only delays it. Delay does not stop collapse; it merely increases its harshness. For when the truth is delayed, it grows heavier, and as it grows heavier, it takes on a sharper form (morphe) upon return. The human being mistakes this sharp touch for an external catastrophe; yet catastrophe does not come from outside, and it is the outward image of the load accumulated within.
In the narrative, the people had absolutized their habits by belittling the prophet's warnings. In modern humans, this belittlement appears in statements such as "this feeling does not concern me; everyone lives like this." These statements constitute the first layer of defense that prevents the individual from recognizing their own inner distortion. Yet the more this layer is strengthened, the greater the pressure on the fragile structure beneath it. As pressure increases, the self enlarges its perception of threat, and this growing perception makes the contact with the truth appear more distant and more harmful.
The people's attempt to conceal decay with new structures is the same defense as that of the modern individual: when truth reaches him, he attributes mental and emotional wear to reasons such as "a hectic pace," "life conditions," or "being busy." These reasons do not reduce inner tension; they only change its visibility. Yet tension whose visibility changes does not disappear; it deepens under its own weight, and in the end, the person feels, under this weight, as though having experienced a "sudden collapse." Yet what is sudden is not collapse, but the collapse's becoming visible.
A society's regarding the truth as a threat is identical to the modern individual's: when the truth reaches him, he hears the inner warning as a "foreign voice" that obstructs. In psychology, it is explained by the deterioration of the field of inner representation: the mind begins to perceive its own inner source as a threat. What is confused with threat is not truth, but the old form of self that openness to truth causes one to let go of. When the old form (morphe) begins to dissolve, the human being assumes he has entered crisis; yet crisis is not the truth, but it is the dissolution of resistance accumulated against the truth.
In conclusion, the most critical error of both societies and individuals is to seek power outside. Yet what determines resilience is not external pillars, but inner flexibility. Every mind that has lost its flexibility is shaken even by the lightest touch of the truth. This is what must be understood.
Another matter is this:
What appears in a society's scene of destruction is not merely an external catastrophe; that scene is, in fact, the final fracture of a structure that could not carry inner decay for years. The sudden tremor the modern individual experiences when the truth reaches him is bound to the same law: it is not the human being's destruction, but the false integrity the human being has constructed about oneself. For the more defenses the self produces to block the contact of truth, the greater the emptiness that emerges when those defenses collapse.
In the narrative, a people listening, in the howl of the wind, to the returned form of their own denial is identical to the modern individual being buried in inner silence when truth reaches him; for this silence is not the sound of truth, but the sound of resistance collapsing. When resistance collapses, the human being assumes, "I am finished"; yet what ends is not the human being, but the false supports that have been carried for years. When these false supports scatter, what remains is not emptiness but the essential ground that truth begins to illuminate.
The final reaction of the people against destruction and aggressiveness corresponds to the modern individual when truth reaches him, leading him to feel anger toward his own emotions and thoughts. This anger does not arise from an instinct of aggression, but from the bewilderment born of the self's inability to preserve its old order. The mind continues to interpret the truth it cannot carry as a threat; yet truth neither attacks nor withdraws, but it merely becomes visible.
The people's saying "our order cannot collapse" and then immediately seeing all their structures collapse is identical to the modern individual, at the end of the period in which he resists with the thought "I can carry on this life like this," suddenly realizing that all his defenses have dissolved. This collapse is not sudden; it is the inevitable return of an inner conflict that had been postponed for years. In psychology, this is accompanied by the compulsion to repeat: the human being lives the truth he has rejected again and again, until he allows truth to touch him.
Even if the apparent cause of a society's destruction is external, those who try to understand truth know that the external scene is only the visible form (morphe) of the inner judgment. The crisis the modern individual experiences when truth reaches him is the same: it is tied to external conditions, attributed to fate or chance, yet the real cause is within. The inner resistance has accumulated to the point where one can no longer bear it and has finally collapsed. When what collapses is resistance, the human being assumes he has collapsed; yet truth does not come to destroy the person, but to dispel what is false.
The silence left beneath the sands after the people's destruction is the symbol of the new openness that forms in the modern individual's inner world when truth reaches him. This openness appears frightening at first because the self has long lived behind defensive walls. When the walls fall, the person feels exposed. Yet this exposure is the greatest possibility truth grants the person: the possibility of seeing oneself as one is and not fleeing from it. Precisely at this point, the people's story gains a new meaning at the individual level: destruction is not truth's enmity toward the human being; it is the new field of beginning that truth opens within the human being. When self-defenses collapse, the human being assumes he has lost; yet what he has lost are only the temporary forms he thought were his own. Essence (ousia) is not destroyed; what is harmed is the shell that conceals the essence. When the shell breaks, the human being's true core becomes visible.
That is: the people's destruction and the moment the modern human mistakes for psychological collapse are bound to the same law of truth: truth never comes to annihilate; the truth only disperses what is false. After false forms disperse, the essential ground that remains is the only ground on which a human being can walk again. This is what must be understood.
As has been followed from the beginning of this essay, the march of a society toward destruction and the inner fracture that arises when truth reaches the modern human are bound to the same law: what does not change is not truth; what does not change is the human tendency to flee from truth. As the flight continues, the voice of truth thins, the mind hardens, and the self becomes stuck in its own architecture. The hardened structure assumes itself strong; yet what it assumes as strength is only an illusion produced by habit.
As fragile as the people's illusion of "nothing will happen to us" is, so fragile is the modern individual's defense when truth reaches him: "I can endure; this feeling will not shake me." Resistance is not the product of real strength, but of inner fear. The human being projects an image of strength to avoid fear; yet this image dissolves upon contact with the truth. What disperses is not strength, but the false form (morphe) carried by that strength. Essence (ousia) never disperses; what is doomed to disperse are the layers that cover the essence.
The scene reveals that, when people are confronted with the storm, it is analogous to the modern individual being buried in his own inner silence when truth reaches him; at the final stage, truth no longer speaks in words but in a state. The denial of a word is possible; the denial of a state is not possible. For this reason, the human being is shaken most in the face of a state. The tremor is not the violence of truth; it is the collapse under the weight of one's own accumulated resistances. What collapses is not the human being, but the illusions the human being holds about oneself.
In this respect, the people's destruction cannot be explained solely by external causes; what appears external is the image of a judgment formed within. The heavy inner collapse felt when truth reaches the modern human is the same: external conditions are only the visible form of the darkened order within. The person assumes he has fractured outside; yet what fractures are the defenses accumulated within. When defenses collapse, the self remains exposed, and the exposed self, for the first time in many years, may be able to see its own essence. The silence remaining beneath the sands after destruction in the narrative likewise symbolizes the deep inner stillness that follows the moment the modern human confronts truth. This stillness is not a sign of defeat but of openness that forms after resistance dissolves. The human being assumes the moment defenses fall is loss; yet what is lost is not the self, but the illusions carried by the self. When illusions disperse, the inner ground becomes visible again.
What is poisonous is not destruction, but the blindness before destruction. As long as blindness continues, truth appears as though it has grown distant; yet truth never grows distant. What grows distant is the human being oneself. The most intense thing felt when truth reaches the modern human is, in fact, not truth, but the burden of having remained far from truth for a long time. The burden is heavy because it is postponed. Every postponed truth returns bearing a sharper mirror.
In conclusion, the destruction described in the story of Hud and his people is not merely a historical record; it is a law that remains at work within the human inner structure. When a human being represses their inner warning, truth returns in a harsher climate. The harshness of the climate is not because of truth, but because the self that has lived far from truth is crushed under its own resistance. When resistance collapses, the human being assumes he is destroyed; yet what is destroyed is the old self that did not allow truth to touch it. And finally, it must be said: truth never comes absolutely to annihilate. Truth breaks the false layers within the human being, but behind every layer it breaks, it leaves a clearer ground. When the human being returns to that ground, one understands that one has not lost, but only confronted what remains. For those who turn toward truth, the very process of destruction is not an end, but the necessary gate of a beginning. This is what must be understood.
From this moment of history, peace be upon Hud and what He brought.