My Confession

For most of my life, I carried a quiet ache. Not the loud kind. Not the crisis kind. The kind that whispers behind every decision: Are you sure? Let's tone it down. Don’t say that, you’ll sound naïve.

Only now, at 70, can I name it. I was born to see the future. And I spent most of my life apologising for it.

From a young age, my thoughts reached forward, imagining what could be, not just what was. I questioned assumptions. I saw cracks before they widened. I felt truths before they were safe to speak.

But that gift was treated as a flaw. Even by those who loved me.

“You’re being idealistic.” “You need to grow up.” “This world doesn’t reward dreamers.”

And so I did what many of us do. I adjusted. I succeeded. I led companies. I helped others build visions. I shaped myself into someone the world could understand and reward. But always with a voice in the back of my mind whispering, What if you were right all along?

I started therapy at 50. At 70, I finally understand what I was healing.

It wasn’t trauma alone. It was a betrayal of self. The slow erosion that happens when you live someone else’s version of “maturity.”

And now? Now I’ve stopped waiting for permission. This is my coming out. Not as gay. Not as political. Not as spiritual. As myself.

I am someone who sees the shape of what’s coming. And I will no longer downplay that gift.

But this message isn’t just about me. It’s not even just for those my age.

It’s for those younger than me, who are being told the same lies I once heard. And it’s for those older than me, who still believe those lies are love.

We didn’t mean to do harm. We were passing down what was passed to us: Pragmatism as a cage. Conformity as safety. “Realism” as a muzzle for the soul.

But we can break that chain. Not by telling the next generation what to do, but by finally becoming who we were meant to be, so they have permission to do the same.

Here’s what I understand now, in a way I couldn’t before:

We live in a chaotic, fake world, not because most of us are lying, but because most of us are hiding.

We hide to fit in. We hide to be accepted. We hide because somewhere along the way, someone told us our truth was “too much.”

So we shrink. We adapt. We survive. And in doing so, we collectively build a society that reflects not who we are, but who we pretend to be.

We think we’re the only ones doubting, aching, breaking quietly. But we’re not. The whole damn system is built on that illusion.

What we call “normal” is often the accumulation of suppressed truths:

• Jobs that numb us.
• Relationships that constrain us.
• Rules written by people who’ve long abandoned themselves.

And then we wonder why the world feels broken.

It’s not just the systems that are cracked. It’s that they were designed around our hiding.

Which means, and this is the part that stuns me, we cannot fix the collective without first returning to the personal.

I spent most of my life thinking that changing the world required building things, influencing systems, “making an impact.” And in part, that’s true. I’ve done those things. But now, I see something deeper:

The most radical act is to unhide. To live our truth without apology. To speak what was once whispered. To stop twisting ourselves to match a broken world, and instead begin healing the world by being whole ourselves.

You don’t need a stage. You don’t need followers. You just need to stop betraying yourself.

That one decision changes everything.

And it spreads. Because when one person steps out of hiding, another gets permission to do the same.

That’s how we shift culture. Not through noise. Through truth.

Quiet. Undeniable. Contagious.

If you're younger: Don’t wait 50 years. The world you dream of needs your truth now. Even if it rattles people. Even if it isolates you for a while.

If you’re older: It’s not too late. The most powerful thing you can offer your children and grandchildren is your own liberation. You don’t have to preach. Just unhide. They’ll see.

And if you’re somewhere in between, aching, doubting, half-awake in a life you didn’t fully choose, then maybe this is your invitation. To stop asking for permission. To stop confusing safety with silence.

You weren’t naïve. You were early. And you are not too late to matter.