I wanted to be seen. Not just noticed — seen. I thought if enough people looked at me, if the spotlight hit me at the right angle, then maybe I’d become real. Solid. Forgiven.
Instead, I became something else. A kind of false prophet of my own invention.
The Public Gaze and the Mirror of Shame
The thing about shame is that it doesn’t hide from the spotlight. It grows inside it.
When the headlines hit — the failed Wonka event, the AI books, the charity collapse — part of me thought, “Good. Now they’re watching. Maybe they’ll finally understand.”
But no one understood. Least of all me. I was mistaking attention for atonement.
I started performing in the rubble. Public apologies. Poetic statements. Half-truths dipped in metaphor. I tried to reclaim the narrative, but really, I was still trying to control it.
The Currency of Confession
There’s a seductive power in public confession. I told myself that if I stripped myself bare, people would forgive me. I thought honesty was a strategy. But confession isn’t currency. It’s not a PR tactic. It’s sacred — or it’s nothing.
The problem was, I hadn’t actually accepted the truth myself. I was rehearsing pain, not processing it.
Every post, every self-penned redemption arc, was part of the same machinery. The same system that created the metaphysical doctorate. The same fantasy that if I looked like I had insight, then I must be healed.
But I wasn’t.
The Real Cost of Being Seen
Being seen isn’t the same as being known. And it sure as hell isn’t the same as being forgiven.
I walked straight into the fire, thinking I’d rise like a phoenix. But there’s no transformation when you skip the pain. No true redemption when your motives are still rooted in ego.
I wasn’t trying to make amends. I was trying to make a monument to my own narrative control.
And the public knew it. That’s why it didn’t work.
The Stage Must Burn
There’s a point when you realise the stage you built is a cage. And every word you say, every post you write, every myth you spin is just reinforcing the bars.
I had to tear it all down. Not with drama. Not with some “final post.” But slowly. Quietly.
I stopped talking and started listening — to the people I’d hurt, to the silences in myself, to the things I was too scared to admit.
I learned that real redemption doesn’t happen because people are watching. It happens especially when they’re not.
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