For a long time, one phrase puzzled me: “Turn away from evil and do good.” Was it really that simple? Just step away from evil—and goodness would somehow appear on its own? Another line troubled me just as much: “Hold your tongue from evil.” I thought I was doing exactly that. I didn’t shout or curse. I merely discussed people with others, offered my honest opinions. If someone’s behavior seemed unpleasant to me, why shouldn’t I say so? Surely that wasn’t evil.

As often happens, the answer came not through reasoning but through experience.

I began living between Moscow and a small provincial town in the Tver region. This split life was new to me. I met locals and newcomers alike—many of them former Muscovites or Petersburgers who had fled the megacity. Almost immediately, I felt that breathing was easier there. Conversations, too, felt lighter, less strained.

Some things I liked, others I didn’t. And, as we Orthodox like to phrase it, I “did not judge, but offered a moral assessment” of the behavior of my new acquaintances. What I failed to account for was one crucial difference between big cities and small towns.

In a metropolis, you can say something unkind about a person, walk on, and never see them again. If you do run into them, you avert your eyes and cross the street. There is little beauty or nobility in this—but the problem seems to vanish.

In a small town, it does not.

In a small town, you will meet the same people for the rest of your life. You step outside, and you’re guaranteed to talk to three or four familiar faces. You discuss everyday matters. No one crosses the street to avoid anyone. And those to whom you once offered your unsolicited “moral assessment”—unsolicited, I emphasize—will remember it. Worse, they will tell others. Before long, you become known throughout the town as someone with a special talent for pointing out other people’s flaws.

The realization didn’t come instantly, but it came quickly enough. By then, I had already hurt someone. I had to do something profoundly difficult: apologize—not just with words, but with actions. It is not easy to admit that no one asked for your opinion. It is not easy to undo the effects of your own “strict judgment.” But it is extraordinarily полезно—useful, even healing.

I began to understand something new. If you focus exclusively on your own moral improvement, and leave the speck in your neighbor’s eye without commentary—without commentary, literally in silence—you actually do something good. A real good. Your neighbors, acquaintances, and new friends are then free to live their own lives without stumbling over your evaluations.

Little by little, through apologies, restraint, and deliberate silence, I found the answer to my original question. How much calmer and more joyful life becomes when you simply “hold your tongue from evil.” How such a modest, almost physical act—saying less—frees you from irritation, resentment, misunderstanding, and, ultimately, suffering.

Some people seem to know this from birth. I did not. I had to learn it the long way, through the lesson of a small town.

A friend of mine, a poet and bard, wrote a song about this town with a simple line: “People are simpler here, and the water is cleaner.” Once I let this truth sink in, I felt it for myself. The water of my life became cleaner too—noticeably, undeniably cleaner.