The Quiet Scam We Live With

I wasn't expecting to be hit so hard by a post that started with a joke about pot, stale kale chips and fake gurus. But leave it to Hive account@beelzael to wrap something sharp and real inside a package of humor. He was talking about non-duality -that spiritual idea of dissolving the line between "I" and "you", of becoming one with the universe. But by the time I finished reading, I realised the post wasn't really about spirituality. It was about us. About me. About this strange age we're living in.

At first, I laughed. The satire was spot on -the sudden rise of self-proclaimed enlightened folks who "felt the oneness" after 30mins of meditation and a Netflix binge. But then I got to the question that stopped me in my tracks:

If scams are so cruel, why is it socially accepted to scam ourselves

That line sat with me. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized: we scam ourselves because it's easier. Because it's safer than saying "I'm still figuring things out". Because in a world that claps louder for appearance than for authenticity, pretending often feels like the only way to survive
We perform healing. We perform depth. We perform presence.

We learn the right vocabulary, "oneness", "alignment", "letting go", and we wrap ourselves in it like armor. Not because we've arrived but because we're afraid of admitting that we haven't even started. That we're still hurting, still lonely, still looking for something real.

And maybe that's what hit me the hardest -the loneliness underneath it all

We crave connection. Deep unshakeable connection but building real connection takes time and honesty. And time is something society tells us we can't afford - not when there's more to do, more to prove, more to post.

So we scam ourselves. We fake connection, we convince ourselves that because we've said the words, we've done the work..

But that's not how any of this work. And no, I'm not claiming to be above it, I've fallen into it too - wanting to seem calm when I'm anxious, wise when I'm unsure, grounded when I feel completely scattered. I've scammed myself into thinking I was okay just because it looked that way from the outside.

But maybe the real path begins in admitting that. In saying "I'm not enlightened, I'm not there yet. But I want to be honest about where I am"

Maybe it starts with taking a walk, not for content but because the sky looked kind today.

Beelzael's words made me laugh, but they also pulled me back into something real. Something quiet and necessary.

And if there's a light to be seen at all, maybe it's not at the top of some imaginary spiritual ladder. Maybe it's in the honesty of just being here -flaws, fears, confusion and all- without pretending to be more than that

image is mine