The Bearer of Uncomfortable Truths

Life changes when the mouth opens to speak. Mine does, and the same can be said for the whole world.

I learned the hard way that negativity loves to thrive in silence.

The things we refuse to speak become the hardy fences that keep us small.

And in this post, I decided to show a sliver of me opening the gates to that fence; to let out something real. I plan to share more, but these are just some things that came to mind.

Why Say It Out Loud

The greatest redemption of honour, for any man of any age, of any place in the world, is to take on the risk of making the free-willing choice to change his entire trajectory in life by the words he utters in the world.

If we are to carry our burdens, we are the bearers of truth. And maybe not all truths are worth speaking, but some of them hold us back, keep us down.

I am the bearer of uncomfortable truths.

I've found it true in me and others that there is a very peculiar union between the soul and its casted shadows. In some, the shadow is so prominent; it hides the soul.

The covenant between the light and dark is the one that most spend their lives actively avoiding. They have not given it much thought.

So much of our time is spent creating infrastructures, sanitized renditions of the true self, to have room for acceptable truths and comfortable narratives.

But what if man's true power is not purely in the stories he tells the world, but in the stories he is afraid to tell? The stories that live within his mind, hidden away from peering eyes.

The body and mind are adaptable, the soul even more so.

But its strength can easily be measured by the degree to how much truth it can tolerate. The same can be said about the extent to which the operator of the soul chooses to sweeten, mute, or falsify the truth to their liking.

The problem with truth is it's like the intellect.

Sharp and cunning, cutting through almost anything that tries to stop it. In the case of the intellect, its sharpness can do more harm than good.

Whereas, the blades of truth are exclusive, cutting to bring about the greater good. They reach far from the voids of who we are and who we pretend to be.

It is the bridge between bliss and pain, the ferry between heaven and hell.

We learn to speak uncomfortable truths:

We do it to:

Movement One: Structure of Shame

I speak my truth.

As much as I wanted to use impostor syndrome as a defense against some of my flaws, I was not an impostor.

I was and am a performer. The masks I've collected, created, and refined sometimes fit so well that I forget that they are there.

Feelings of shame rarely come about from taking on a new role, but from refusing your older one, whilst still carrying it with you.

Around 19-20 years of age, I had some breakthroughs in regards to what I perceived as "issues" or "problems". I discovered that many of them were not due to oversight or avoidance, but rather as a consequence of not being authentic.

Many of the secrets or shame I carried about myself would drown out my truer, freer self in a cloud of doubt and confusion.

Toronto, winter. Black Timberland boots stained in salt, dog leash in my freezing glove-free hand. Breath like the thickest smokes in a cigar lounge.

I was on a walk with my Mother, with our then still-alive lovely dog, April. We were walking on the "routine" path as usual.

And even though we've walked here so many times before, the usual sense of comfort wasn't prominent. There was a burden rising higher through my body, clogging up my throat in preparation for utterance.

Like glass in my throat, an unpleasant sensation.

"Mom, I need to tell you something."

It wasn't pills. It wasn't alcohol. It wasn't a traditional drug. It was a form of attention addiction, a devotion of time to a world made of fantasy and images on a screen.

I was under the strong impression that it was preventing me from greater things, but the truth was that my closedness was the real culprit.

She scanned and tried to find a threat or great concern, but only found her son. I'm certain she didn't fully understand what I was trying to convey, and in a way, that's the power that bottled truth has over us.

It rings stronger in us than in others; it passes greater judgment in our minds.

Not being a regular user of technology didn't help either in her understanding, trying to process what an overuse of pornography even is; it simply doesn't make sense.

The shame I carried at the time had power over me because it stole the power I refused to give my voice to. She did not recoil or judge.

Trying to help, she simply said in Russian: "Спачибо, что доверил, ..." she said. Thank you for trusting me.

These thoughts I had and struggles are shared with many around the world. I could name at least 10 off the top of my head, but this problem is an international phenomenon. And yet, these problems are entirely foreign to others.

Trying to describe it could seem like a nonsensical delusion to somebody, and to another, it could be like trying to copy exactly what they are trying to say.

Anyway, I felt a strong relief in having said these things aloud to somebody close. Somebody who simply didn't have a grasp on what was going on.

Any anticipation of judgment or scorn was always worse than any judgment itself, which there was none. This is the greatest lesson I learned that day.

Movement Two: Others' Night

I speak my truth.

I can't count on my fingers how many times in my life, friends have come to me with troubles on the precipice of their possible extinction.

Not in metaphor, but in the literal sense. The kind of meetings, calls, and texts in which you can barely hear the words, as they hollow out like echoes in a corridor.

For various reasons, I was trusted more than once with extremely painful thoughts, experiences, and doubts. A subtle tone a phone takes in the early morning. It isn't a ring; it's a plea.

"I can't do this anymore. What is there to live for?". For somebody who is a strong proponent of life, it's always difficult to be on the receiving end of these words.

And even though I've also been there and know what it's like, I did not act on it. But the reality is that many do, and it's a very difficult, real thing. It happens more often than you can imagine.

My amazing mother had such an experience in her early years, and without going into much detail, by some miracle, she lived and continued. And much later, I was born, and I am grateful for that gift. But I could have also not been born, and that would have been that.

In a way, I was forced into being a lifeline for others, without any readiness for it. And I chose to be present, to simply be there. I had no tools prepared, I had no scripts, and I did not know the future.

I was there only because I was willing to listen. I knew how to sit and share the darkness with them, instead of trying to flood them with light.

I had learned to be easy with having space for their pain, and not my own. Being there without trying to fix it. To breathe with them on the balcony until the morning came.

To speak for hours as long as it was needed, to be here and know that others care for them.

In some ways, for friends and family, sometimes the simplest truth is the greatest truth.

I am here.

In a world of brokenness, we strive to learn the means of repair. Not through fixing, but through staying power.

Movement Three: Pure Cocaine

I speak my truth.

In the past, I had a relatively low moral threshold when it came to doing things. Even though I had a high standard for morality in my mind, in practice, I would often succumb to the lower self.

In addition to having an extremely inquisitive and energetic mind, I would often do things for the sake of doing them.

Even though the things we do are moulded by our surroundings, environment alone isn't enough to make someone pursue something, and another not.

I recall a period in my life when I did not need to make money in odd ways, I was free from the stigma of a drug dealer, and still somehow came to sell cocaine briefly at clubs in downtown Toronto.

I wasn't incredibly lucrative with it, most of the time taking a loss. I was drawn to the allure, the red line of risk, being someone who stands near his edge.

There were ideas on making it a larger operation with a full-fledged import system, but I grew out of it quickly when my mind switched directions.

To be truthful, I'm not going to say my conscience was stained by this. At the time, it felt like the right thing. Money felt clean, and the customer wasn't a hard-strung addict.

It was people like me who wanted to elevate their dancing or musical experience.

I don't regret it. But I do regret any plausible implicit consequences it bore. I also wouldn't do it again.

What I learned from this is that ambition without any particular greater purposeful aim metastasizes and becomes simply an appetite. Life isn't greater because you have more edge, it's solemnly enhanced by having a real, useful direction.

Movement Four: Done Is Done

Continuing in the same line of thinking, I'll surface some more of my past into text.

There were moments in my life where I said or did things that hurt others because I wanted to get a reaction out of those I "belonged" with. And also, just because it was funny, I guess.

Admittedly, I was very young, and I guess it could be associated with age. But kids all act differently. Going back even younger, I would pretty much do the opposite of what I did.

I would be protecting the person from those who would do what I did. And funny enough, while I was doing it, I also tried to be nice to them at other times. A hypocrite I was.

I wasn't a typical bully or somebody who had a track record of it, but some cruelty did exist. It's uncalled for, honestly. Because I was sort of a jester, it was expected of me to be a little bit more edgy.

My tongue could be a blade disguised as humour. I'm certain that there were unseen cuts made into another.

Since then, I've done the work I thought necessaryconnecting with those whom I might have hurt, trying to rebuild, ask forgiveness, and forgive. But I also had a fair share of fixing when I was still around towards the later grades.

More often than not, the things I did weren't even things I wanted to do. There was something in me, an impetus or drive, a tainted part of me that had a semblance of loathing towards myself and others.

For a long time, I had a very contrarian quality. Possibly learned from my parents and refined by me. I would be the devil's advocate when none is needed, and in a way, being against something felt more powerful than being for nothing.

What I learned through the wrongdoings of my life is that we often become the worst self in the service of becoming someone. Facing the discomfort can be comforting to our true selves.

And in this, we grow.

Movement Five: Recognition

I speak this truth.

In a way, every person is a museum. A museum can be described as a place in which mistakes and successes are displayed.

In this manner, many people are also the curators of their grand museum. For many, their museum shows the negative. I propose that we be curators of wisdom.

We must not let our "failures" stay behind red velvet ropes, so that no one may see them.

Most of the time, if not all of the time, what we consider our worst moments are the most instructive ones. Our shadows might not be our sword enemies; they may be our solemn teachers.

Perhaps, the things we are ashamed of are things that qualify us to help others guide them through similar waters?

Cocaine gave me a beautiful lesson on risk and consequence.

Addiction has taught me about the infrastructure of compulsion.

Cruelty has helped me understand the spread of our interactions.

The shadows cast by our mistakes give us an inkling; they reveal the shape of our potential. Refining following the choices we make, to either do the things we want to do or to do the things we don't want to do.

Movement Six: Redemption

I speak this truth.

To paraphrase King Durin from Rings of Power, there can be no trust between rock and hammer. One must surely break, in the end.

For a long time, I was a solid, silent rock, in hopes that hardness would protect me. But a rock, no matter how tough, only knows how to endure. It does not grow.

Hammers don't grow either, but I chose to be the hammer instead. To break other rocks, but to breach the silences that calcified parts of me.

To shatter comfortable lies keeping me small. To destroy serving constructed images that had my resemblance but not my truth.

Transformation in truth is not a mood. It's an active decision.

If you are intrigued, you can start by putting what bothers you on paper, and then talk to a person if necessary. Further, make amends where the extension of "harm" or "evil" has an address and a name. Smaller promises kept help you earn the right to make a larger one.

There is a great unleashing from within, and uncovering of the soul; if you choose to speak yourself into existence, the reality of what you are.

I have no particular interest in sharing my stories with others; I am about the lived experience, and what's past is past.

And yet I have chosen to do it, not due to trends or impulse, but because it might be necessary. Vulnerability is popular nowadays, but that's because it's powerful.

Heat, strike. Back to fire, heat again. Repeat. Strength from impact, flexibility from flame.

"

The strongest steel is forged by the fires of hell. It is pounded and struck repeatedly before it's plunged back into the molten fire.

"

To all those who read it: truth still matters. Your story, with all of its light and all of its darkness, has value. Sharing it is not a personal redemption, but a gift to others who may walk in similar darkness.

We are beautiful and terribly human. In this shared brokenness, we find our collective power. In the individual, we create our shared healing.

The real freedom is not in perfection, but in becoming more real.

Movement Seven: Forgiveness

I speak what I must speak.

Here are some of the things I ask forgiveness for:

Forgiveness is not an eraser; that's not how it works.

It's a propped-up bridge that helps you connect your past with your present. Letting you not only speak it differently, but to cross and live differently as well.