The Deceiver

How easily—statistics will tell you, in fact most people do it—whether they wear the mask of lofty principles or parade their baseness openly, whether they're esteemed advisors on the path to greatness or cunning deceivers wrapped in their own lies—anyone at all can belong to this tribe—they flatly deny the harsh and absolute truths, they deftly sidestep their deliberate failures, and speak such grand words about all manner of things that it becomes truly astonishing, sometimes, to witness!

Yes, I grant it—perhaps some don't know these things. But they themselves do know! And yet, standing before so many people, they speak such enormous words about matters that contradict their very nature, without their voice trembling even once! Not a single word ever catches in their throat!

With what extraordinary composure their skilled performance continues! They don't merely refrain from confession or remorse—far from it—they turn around and gift others, by day's end, with epithets like guilty, selfish, and a dozen such honors. They wound that person, trample them underfoot with pride, and strut about their own little world like heroes!

Alas, what remains for humanity? Suffering, love, compassion, and a handful of other such priceless virtues! For them, these are mere luxuries, nothing more!

And then there are these foolish people of middling mind, weak of heart, who—on account of some self-destructive personal feeling, in utter helplessness, as if they had no choice—keep right on tolerating these deceivers, let them gush forth their fountains of lies with perfect pride, again and again. And by day's end, stripped bare, they turn back to the streets, wearing the beggar's rags once more!

They understand it all, they do—and yet, when they see those mask-wearers, they cannot open their mouths even once to say: You are a fraud!