I have been thinking about honesty.
Not the kind exchanged between people, but the kind that happens in silence. What do I tell myself when no one is listening? What truths do I avoid?
It is easy to be honest, after a fashion, to others. I choose what to admit, what to conceal, what is acceptable. But even when I am aiming for truth, is what I say built on illusion?
Only looking inside can I know. With myself there is only the sharp edge of what is or is not.
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On the ridge path, wind cuts. Stones underfoot leave no room for pretense in my gait. I either balance or stumble. None to witness. Just my own footing, its own measure. Am I self-honest enough to see when I am off balance?
We imagine how we might appear to someone watching. But there is only the rock, the air, the slope beneath boots. Each slip, each sure step, ours alone. The mountain does not flatter nor lie.
Alone here, honesty is not a choice but a condition. The terrain teaches what the body already knows, irrespective of whether I will admit it.
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With others, honesty can be performance. With myself, honesty is bare. Harder. Truer.
Real courage begins early, in the solitude of naming my own truth, before it ever reaches another ear.
To speak plainly to myself is the beginning of freedom.
– from the mountain
Consider:
What truth waits for me to stop hiding?
Reading:
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” — Thomas Jefferson
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“Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.” — Ephesians 4:25 (KJV)
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