The Silent Truth

I must admit: I find myself in a strangely unsettled season of life. I’ve neglected this blog for far too long, and tonight—of all nights—I watched The Housemaid, starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried. For reasons I can’t fully explain, that was enough to loosen something in me. I feel compelled to write. I don’t know which muse has decided to visit me this evening, but it has been a long time since I’ve felt any genuine motivation to put words down. The fact that I do now feels like a small mercy.

The Housemaid is a psychological thriller—a genre I rarely seek out, but one that tends to leave a deep impression when I do. A well-made thriller destabilizes your sense of reality; it pulls the rug out from under what you thought you knew. There’s something unsettling and exhilarating about occupying that space, even briefly. One of the film’s central themes is gaslighting: characters brazenly denying events that clearly occurred, forcing others to question their own perception. That theme has stayed with me, because gaslighting has been occupying my thoughts long before the credits rolled.

The word gaslighting has become almost too common, and that overuse has complicated things for me. As I understand it, gaslighting is the deliberate undermining of another person’s sense of reality through manipulation and deceit. I’ve been accused of being a gaslighter by people who once mattered deeply to me—an accusation that has never sat right in my spirit. Some have even gone further, claiming that I don’t respect them or their perspectives. That charge feels especially insidious, because any attempt to defend myself only seems to reinforce their belief. As someone who takes emotional life seriously—who leads with compassion more often than not—being labeled manipulative or dismissive cuts deeply.

So I find myself asking a difficult question: how do I protect my sense of reality when it feels as though I am being gaslit by someone who believes, just as sincerely, that I am gaslighting them?

The irony is that I have moved through much of my life feeling disrespected by others. More often than not, I let it go. I forgive. I tell myself it’s just my ego reacting, that these wounds aren’t as important as they feel in the moment. And often, that’s true. But lately, I feel myself nearing a tipping point. I am growing less tolerant of what I can only describe as people’s bullshit.

Bullshit is everywhere. It saturates our culture, and it seems to multiply by the day. Ever since I read Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit, I’ve become more aware of how pervasive it is—and how easily I participate in it myself. I try to resist it, but some days it feels like a losing battle in a society that consumes it by the metric ton. This awareness has made me more cautious, more discerning, and—if I’m honest—more distrustful of those who aren’t doing similar inner work. Even writing that makes me uneasy; it risks sounding like moral superiority, which I want no part of. Still, regardless of who is right or wrong, I know this much: I have to stand in my own truth.

I’ve never been eager to tell my story loudly, nor to call people out publicly. But perhaps the time has come to speak more plainly. What stops me is fear—fear of consequences, of misinterpretation, of digital retribution. The online world feels like the Wild West these days; you never know who might take aim at you for reasons that have nothing to do with you. Maybe that fear is exaggerated. Maybe it’s another illusion I need to outgrow. What I do know is that my aim is simple: I want to make sense of this world, and in doing so, help myself and others live a little more honestly within this treacherous digital landscape.

I’m grateful that this blog remains quiet and unassuming. Lately, I’ve been intentionally shrinking my online footprint. I no longer have X or Instagram. Snapchat and TikTok may soon follow. I once imagined using TikTok as a home for my poetry, but the truth is, I don’t want to go viral. If anything, I want the opposite. I want to be local. Contained. Rooted in this small corner of the internet where words can breathe.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you. Truly. I hope—perhaps naïvely—that we can be the beginnings of a quieter movement. One that values presence over performance. One that cultivates mindfulness while remaining grounded in the world as it is. A movement that seeks balance: within ourselves, between ourselves, and between perception and reality. A movement that honors the mind, the body, and the spirit with equal care.

I hesitate even to name it, but let’s call it a movement of silent truth.

And yes, I recognize the contradiction in speaking aloud about silence. Still, I’m weary of those who claim exclusive access to the truth, as though it were a private possession. I don’t want dominion over truth. I only want to experience my own—directly, humbly, and embodied in real life.

This will be the last I say of the silent truth. I trust you to carry it quietly, too.