A meditation on the lies we live
You do it. I know you do it. I do it. The Queen did it. The Pope does it.
Every CEO, every saint, every person who ever made you feel small—they all do it.
And we all pretend we don't.
This is the first lie. Not the worst. Not dangerous. But the template.
There's what you do in private.
There's what you admit in public.
And there's a gap between them.
That gap is where performance begins.
You know the move.
Doors close. Silence. Then... it arrives. And everyone stares straight ahead, breathing shallow, pretending they're alone. Pretending it didn't happen. Pretending they've never produced one themselves.
Eleven strangers, united in a shared lie.
This is the social contract at its most absurd. We all know. We all pretend we don't know. And somehow, this feels less awkward than just saying "sorry, that was me."
Why?
Because admission costs something. It breaks the performance. It says: I am a body. I am human. I am not above the mess of being alive.
And somewhere along the way, we learned that being human is embarrassing.
At farts and boogers, the gap is comedy. We laugh because it's harmless. Nobody's hurt by pretending they didn't hear that.
But the gap doesn't stay harmless.
Same structure. Same performance. But now something's at stake.
Now you're not just hiding a booger.
You're hiding yourself.
Remember one?
Maybe at work. Maybe at a funeral where you weren't "close enough" to the person to earn your grief. Maybe in an argument where tears would've meant losing.
You felt it rise. And you crushed it.
Swallowed it. Clenched your jaw. Blinked fast. Did that thing where you look up at the ceiling like something fascinating is happening up there.
And it worked. Nobody saw.
Victory?
Here's what actually happened: a true signal tried to transmit. Your body knew something and tried to say it. And you—loyal to the performance—closed the connection.
You shut the aperture. You stayed on broadcast. And something that was trying to be real got shoved back into the dark.
One time? No big deal.
But you've done it more than once, haven't you?
A warehouse. A museum. Rows and rows of glass jars, each one containing a truth you didn't let yourself have.
That museum is in you. You've been building it your whole life.
And here's the thing about museums: they require maintenance. Security. Climate control. It takes energy to keep all those jars sealed.
Where do you think that energy comes from?
You thought it was work. Or the kids. Or not enough sleep.
And sure. Those are real.
But underneath—there's a leak. A constant, low-grade drain. The power required to keep the performance running. To maintain the gap between what you feel and what you show.
Every "I'm fine" costs something.
Every swallowed truth takes a little more.
The museum gets bigger. The energy bill goes up.
And one day you're exhausted for "no reason."
Here's the part that'll get you:
You can lie to your mind. You can lie to others. But your body keeps the score.
The body doesn't lie. It can't.
It just holds what you won't.
So here's an invitation.
Not to spill your guts to everyone. Not to abandon all social grace and become a fart-announcing, nose-picking, oversharing menace.
Just... one honest thing. One small truth you've been holding.
Maybe you say it out loud to yourself.
Maybe you write it down.
Maybe you just let yourself feel it without the commentary about whether you're allowed to.
Not because it'll fix everything.
But because that's how the museum starts to empty. One jar at a time. One "actually, I'm not fine" at a time. One real thing allowed to be real.
Remember: not all lies are equal.
Pretending you didn't fart in the elevator? That lie has a door. Everyone knows. No one's trapped. We move on.
Pretending you're fine when you're drowning? That door is starting to close.
Pretending so long you forget you're pretending? The door is gone. Now you're locked in with a story that isn't true, and you've lost the key.
The gap between booger and breakdown isn't as big as you think.
It's the same muscle. The same move.
Just practiced at higher and higher stakes until you can't tell performance from self.
The good news: the door can be reopened.
Every truth you let yourself have—even the small ones—is a step back toward real. Every "actually, that hurt" is a crack in the performance. Every feeling you feel instead of swallow is a jar removed from the museum.
You don't have to do it all at once.
Start with a booger. Work your way up.
The lie makes truth feel unsafe. So you start trying to control it. And in controlling it, you become the distortion.
And from that single distortion, all the rest spirals.
👃 Begin there. 👃