Dear _____,

I find myself scared more often. The world seems to be unraveling – and I suppose you could look at every previous era, year, whatever and say the same thing for similar or different reasons. Depending on who you are, where and how you are born, what you become or are forced to do to survive… perhaps the world already seems to be in pieces.

We live in a time where it’s impossible to not see everything wrong going on. Try as you might to limit your exposure and sometimes ignore it… it’s always there regardless. It’s a privilege to be able to shut yourself off from the suffering of the world… it’s a privilege I know I have been afforded. I have been fortunate to grow up where I did and how I did, but I’ve lived with the ability to simply… tune out any bad news that came my way. Whatever felt so far removed from my own life, I have been able to ignore it if I so chose to. To not follow the headlines, to turn my attention elsewhere when faced with uncomfortable happenings within the world. As I write this, I realize how callous that stance is and hope to put it behind me.

If you’re like me, you may then ask, “But then what do we do? Stay on all the time and be an open wound to every bad thing that happens? Be a sponge to every injustice and always speak up?” Perhaps. Though it’s more nuanced than that. I guess it depends on what you can do within your means. If that means volunteering and going to those in need, do it if it calls to you. Or if you can’t do that, do something smaller – donate something, educate yourself, go to protests… or simply know where you stand and firmly stick by it. There are a lot of options of what you can do.

I think the biggest part of all this is to just give a damn. To know what you believe in and to actually care about it, care about others. Speak up, even if that’s all you can do. Give as much as you can, whether that’s everything you are or a little. Any of your effort is taking a stand, no matter how long you do it for or how much you end up giving.

I don’t know. I come from a great place of privilege. I know I’m not someone with any first-hand experience of the kind of suffering going on in the world. But that doesn’t mean I can’t learn and be willing to educate myself about these things. Perhaps that’s enough sometimes, and perhaps it sometimes isn’t. But I want to keep trying.

Originally written 30-08-2025

Accompanying music: Untitled 2 by The Green Kingdom