On honesty, privacy, and the quiet difference between surviving and being
I wake up at three every morning to write these blogs.
I am awake and aware while my world is still sleeping. Quietly.
And then life begins—at a familiar rhythm of roles, responsibilities, and identities.
I make sure I am done writing before sunrise.
Before accumulated knowledge shines on accumulated notions of what it means to be safe.
Before slipping into the comfort of being acceptable, predictable, and understood.
The public self learns how to behave, speak, perform, and survive.
When I write, I have to make a conscious decision about how much of my private life I am allowed to share.
Is there a distinction? Are there any gaps? And how does it affect my well-being and the people around me?
In the light of knowledge, in the morning, it feels like I have lived a life efficiently—productively.
But in fact, it is slightly hollow.
I know I exist somewhere between public and private.
But just because I exist there doesn’t mean I know how to function there.
It calls for introspection.
***
Wilhelm Wundt states that the beginning of mental life dates back to the beginning of life.
But when consciousness enters, and how cognition is triggered, is still open for debate.
Hence, no one knows how we started distinguishing public life from personal life as animals.
Other animals don’t make room for privacy every day.
But we can be sure that we do have a distinction, and this is the way we function.
We like to accumulate things in our homes, and we choose the people with whom we want to spend our lives.
But a quiet question begins to surface:
Is this living—or only surviving?
When I publish the blog, the gap between public me and private me becomes visible.
I certainly don’t add names or identities to the characters in my life when I write.
I have the licence to share about myself as much as I want—but not about others.
And this conscious decision does not come out of law-abiding behaviour.
It has to do with morals and ethics that are part of the soul and expressed in the physical realm.
A desire arises to live without carrying the weight of a façade—and I follow my heart wholeheartedly.
Not to impress.
Not to perform.
Just to be.
***
It is a dangerous spot to be in. At the same time, most rewarding and fulfilling.
To unfold life on paper as it unfolds itself is a meditative experience.
But opening up private life feels like standing without armour.
I have chosen honesty over projection.
Reality over an idea.
Reality is right now, present.
An idea is something that may or may not actualise or have existed before. It’s just an idea.
But then a thought arises: what if I contradict myself in the future?
But apart from this acknowledgement, not everything is shareable and should never be.
Because it cannot be shared.
Some truths are lived. Not displayed.
And only the person living the experience can understand them; sharing would be a failed attempt.
To be alive is to have both tangible and non-tangible aspects of existence.
The body is incomplete without the life force in it, and the life force cannot have a human experience without the body.
These senses translate the known to the unknown—knowingly if you’re aware, unknowingly if you are not. But they do.
***
An image is projected. It needs projection. An artificial effort.
Truth simply is.
I accept that some parts of my life will remain private.
Partly because I am not on a mission to publish my autobiography. I use my personal experience to share my thoughts; that’s it.
Partly because there are parts of all of us that cannot be shared. They are sacred. Spontaneously empty.
Moreover, these writings are not a quest to justify something from the inner world.
It is not even a matter of gratification.
There is an urge to write; I write.
And I want to be honest in my writing. I want to express from my true core.
Honesty is lighter than sustained pretence.
Life is played out in day-to-day shenanigans. I take part, support, and try to anchor my expression into something unmoving within us.
That—something that is the same in you and the same in me.
These events in my life and the act of writing are a formality to connect with you.
Connecting is more important for me right now.
If I want to be honest, I must learn to live without constantly editing myself.
It is tiring and daunting. I pass that.
***
I bury the fear of contradictions in the ground of my inner growth.
I am expanding so much that it feels like I am disappearing.
Contradiction is growth.
Whatever grows changes its shape, form, and way of being.
Anything changing is alive. Anything that has changed has contradicted itself.
The nature of this blog is camaraderie—to meet you every day in words and in the silent space within.
There is emptiness that I want to share in the silence.
An empty world in empty space.
It’s not in words that you will truly find me; it is in between them.
Our worlds might not collide, but this silence does.
The same inner experience breathes in you and in me.
This blog is just an occasion to celebrate this togetherness.
A moment of living from the core, not the surface.
We are more than stories, roles, trauma, and conditioning.
We are consciousness. Collective consciousness and superconsciousness.
***
By doing so, I have released the need to be approved.
I might not be clear sometimes, a bit more abstract, but I pursue pure expression.
I release judgments of right and wrong. This “to be or not to be” dilemma springs from self-judgment.
My life is messy, incomplete, and unfinished.
I invite you to see it unfold, and I don’t offer any certainty of reaching a destination.
There is no destination; this journey is the destination.
I don’t know, and I don’t want to know, what happens to us after death.
Because no one lives to know what happens in death.
Meanwhile, let’s live as it comes.
Knowing that every situation is impermanent has a zing to it.
A moment to rejoice. Then let it be good, let it be bad.
Accept. As it is.
***
When I am done with the expression in the morning, I return to daily life.
Relationships and responsibilities are part of this physical existence.
I go to cultural events, meet interesting people, and make new friends.
I am part of society, but I am an individual part of society.
Like a drop in the ocean is the ocean.
The world I see and experience is my world.
Within and without.
I don’t mistake reflections for truth.
I live outwardly, rooted inwardly.
I try to live more and explain less.
Drawing from the inner core is to live; shallow judgments about right and wrong are barely surviving.
Consciousness. The inner experience. The core.
It is the same in me and the same in you.
The way we experience the world depends on our conditioning.
But the way we experience the ultimate truth depends on nothing.
Not even me. Not even you.
To be alive is not louder—it is truer.