“I Left the Echo”

They said I changed. And for once, they were right.

But they said it like an accusation, like I had violated some silent contract of conformity I never signed. Like my evolution was betrayal.

I didn’t stand up and shout. I didn’t raise a sword or smash a window. I simply… stepped away.

I left the echo.

The echo of expectations. Of voices not mine, reverberating in my skull like ancestral commands. Be humble. Be small. Be what they understand. Be what makes them comfortable.

But something inside me—something unyielding and bright—said no.

I remember the moment like a heartbeat held too long. I was sitting with people I love. People who saw me not for who I am, but who I was trained to be. I was quiet. They spoke of obligations. Of sacrifice. Of how success should be diluted so it doesn’t make others feel small. And then someone laughed and called my values a “phase.” Like I was going through an ideological puberty.

I smiled. Not because it was funny. But because it was familiar.

I’ve been here before—where certainty is mistaken for arrogance, where discipline is mistaken for cruelty, where joy is measured by how much of yourself you’re willing to destroy for someone else’s comfort.

And I’ve played that role. The agreeable son. The good friend. The silent thinker. But the silence became unbearable. Like breathing through a straw in a burning room.

So I left the echo.

Not because I hated them. Not because I thought I was better. But because I finally knew: I couldn’t become who I am supposed to be in a room that kept dragging me back into the mold of who I was.

They said I follow a cult.

But let me tell you something: Cults demand obedience. This path demands reason.

Cults ask for sacrifice. This demands self-respect.

Cults strip you of your identity. This revealed mine.

I don’t believe in saviors. Not the bleeding gods nor the golden idols of groupthink. I believe in the mind. In the I. In the right of an individual to stand alone and be whole.

I don’t ask for applause. I don’t demand understanding. But I do demand the right to exist freely.

And that’s a terrifying idea for people who’ve never truly looked in the mirror.

My philosophy—no, my way of living—asks me not to kneel, not to flatter, not to fake. It asks me to rise. Every day. To meet the world not with trembling apologies but with clarity. With earned pride. With hands that build instead of beg.

There were days I felt lonely. Still do. But I am not lost.

Because even in my solitude, I am not fractured. I am not performing.

I am real.

And now, when I write, or speak, or simply live, I do not do it to convince. I do it to radiate. Let the light fall where it will. Let those who mistake it for fire run back into the shade.

I’m not here to prove anything. I’m here to be. Fully. Freely. Fiercely.

So no—I won’t return to the echo.

I’ll be outside, forging something new.

Not from guilt, but from gold.

Not from sacrifice, but from vision.

Not for them, but for me.

And if my name is spoken years from now, let it not be said that I bowed.

Let it be said that Vishwaksen stood.

Alone, perhaps.

But never, ever, on his knees.