Hypocrisy

The river does not pretend to be the mountain.

The mountain does not pretend to be the sky.

Each follows its nature, and so there is peace.

Why then do people demand trust

while proving themselves unworthy of it?

Why then do people speak of truth

while hiding from it?

They condemn the shadow,

yet stand where the light cannot reach.

Once, I lived this way.

I spoke of balance while running from my own storms,

offered wisdom while avoiding my own lessons.

I saw the world’s contradictions

and judged them, blind to my own.

Hypocrisy is not just the lies we tell others,

but the deeper ones we tell ourselves.

The ones so subtle, they feel like truth.

To want love while withholding it.

To seek peace while stirring conflict.

To teach presence while escaping the moment.

This is the way of imbalance,

a tightrope stretched too thin.

It cannot hold us for long.

Why do we do this?

Is it fear of being seen?

Or fear of seeing ourselves?

The mind clings to identity,

afraid of contradiction, afraid of being undone.

Yet in nature, nothing is fixed.

The seed does not call itself weak.

The storm does not call itself cruel.

Each unfolds as it must, without deception.

Respect begins with seeing.

Not with judgment, not with force—

but with the quiet courage

to witness things as they are.

To be whole, we must hold all of ourselves.

The wisdom and the folly.

The light and the shadow.

The teacher and the student, walking side by side.

What is virtue?

It is not a performance,

not a set of rules to follow.

Virtue is the natural expression of truth.

It rises like the sun, effortless and clear.

It does not need recognition,

does not need praise.

It simply is.

When we stop grasping,

when we stop hiding,

virtue returns like spring after winter.

Trust in goodness.

Not in the hollow kind that seeks approval,

but the quiet, steady goodness

that asks for nothing in return.

The way forward is not in striving, not in mastery

not in forcing ourselves to be pure.

A flower does not bloom by command.

It opens when it is ready.

To move beyond hypocrisy,

we must see it without shame.

To stop pretending,

we must accept who we are.

When we live as we are,

words and actions become one.

Effort dissolves into flow.

Mastery in to grace.

No longer divided, no longer heavy—

we return to something simpler.

Like the river, like the mountain,

like the sky.

The only way to escape hypocrisy

is not to fight it,

but to meet it with honesty.

In honesty, there is respect.

In respect, there is virtue.

In virtue, there is peace.

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If you’ve made it this far, thank you. These are personal reflections—born from my own experiences, shared so others might relate. It’s a labor of love and growth. If it resonates, subscribing (it's free), liking and sharing means a lot. Please consider following me on Substack.