Where do we go from here?
I cannot orate a solution fit for the scale of this suffering. But I will also not pretend we are powerless.
In my previous post I asked: how do we hold both light and dark?
I felt called to speak into it more here and was moved by so many great responses - please give them a read. It comes back, as so often, to why any writing ever strikes a chord in us:
Truth.
But truth, these days, is a heavy thing to carry out in the open.
Along with many, I find myself weary, even heartsick, under the oppressive and perverse powers that seem to steer the world. As these words find the page, the air is torn by violence, bombs and bullets mark the fate of men, women and children caught in a reckoning of forces they did not summon.
It feels it’s all only just beginning. My heart goes to the survivors. The children who have to pick up their lives from the rubble and decimated homes. What emotional and psychological wounds we leave them with. How does that not perpetuate and ripple into the next generation. The healing ahead of them is a mountain to overcome. I fear for them and for their children.
And that plundering of our humanity is bright and mercilessly delivered through the scroll of a thumb. Atrocity beside advertisement. Grief beside entertainment. Corruption beside a recipe, a dance, a meme.
A sickening web of our inhumanity becomes so apparent that the soul at times numbs into shock. And shock does not easily lead to the right response. We are flooded - perhaps by design - wave after wave. The destruction of our environment, the power hungry elite, the land grabbing and genocides, the warmongering dressed as defense, the Epstein files that unfold just how revolting people in power act and get away with. And that’s just the tip of the melting iceberg.
It’s enough to make our inner life feel swarmed, as if we’re being asked to carry more courage than we have in our bodies to give. I now understand the hopelessness King Théoden in Lord of the Rings felt when he said: “What can men do against such reckless hate?”
What happens on a global scale also happens in front of us. In our very households. In workplaces. On commutes. In conversations where truth is bent “just a little” to keep the advantage, the leverage over someone or something, to keep the mask intact.
Something happened in my own life recently that took the heart of me.
Three weeks ago, in an altercation that opened many old wounds, I cut contact with my biological father. Decades of harm violently punctured the surface and reached its limit - I was done with cycle after cycle of pain - no more. I won’t go into the details because this is not the context I wish to write about now. The relevancy I want to show here is that it awakened in me something hard to deny - something of similar energy to what I see in people around me.
It sparked an unf*ckwithable stance.
To stand for life, for our future, for integrity, for truth, against oppression. Against the twisting of words and realities. Against this dystopia that’s presented to us as if there’s no other way.
We live in a society skilled at persuading us into false narratives. Products are sold with grand promises they can never keep. Food manipulated to the point it has nothing to do with nutrition. Politics that speak in theatre and deal in lies. Agreements to protect our forests and oceans, discarded at the slightest inconvenience. And the great, exhausting force continuously divides: right against left, black against white, religion against religion, rich against poor. All so we forget we share the same house.
The hard truth is not that there may be puppeteers at the top of some long staircase. It is that we—in a million small surrenders—hand away our agency.
We ignore suffering unless it kneels at our doorstep. We scroll past the wounded and the lesser fortunate. We harden. We grow cold. And equally we have to give ourselves compassion, because we’re overwhelmed and tired and trying to keep our own lives afloat. Raising families, paying bills, taking care of sick loved ones, trying to find meaning in the mess without losing faith.
How - with all of this - do we not fall into nihilism and indifference? How do we retain our humanity? Retain what I call our mortal divinity: the living power to choose, to act, to repair, to tell the truth, to love well in a time that makes love feel naïve.
I have asked myself: are we truly the middle children of history—too late for innocence, too early for resolution? Do we have power to shift anything at all? Or is parasitism and cruelty a hardwired inheritance to the human race?
We have enough evidence of what we become when abandoned by the structures of civility and culture. But I do not believe barbarism is the whole story of human nature. I believe part of our sickness is precisely that: we have severed our bond with our wider nature. We traded what grows and gives for landscapes of concrete, extraction and optimization circuitry.
So where do we go from here? Do we give up? Play along and save ourselves until we find ourselves beyond saving?
I do not have the full answer, that can only come from the hearts of all of us. What I can offer is this: the course of history is not only moved by crowns and councils, those forces far away on thrones and in war rooms.
No. Our future trajectory is moved by a chain of small actions.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
- Margaret Mead
Herein lies a ray of light.
As in Greek mythology, Pandora’s jar released the worst of curses upon the world. Leaving behind only Hope. Let us not be fooled, hope on its own is empty and can be a curse. It can lead to naïvety, to inaction, to further surrendering. What’s longed and required of us in times like these is active hope. Generative hope. The kind that comes as the byproduct from action. The kind that can only come from acknowledging what is and surges through us when a string of small counter moments gain momentum.
I read a beautiful piece in one of Charles Eisenstein’s latest essays that spoke about an opposing power. One not dealing in manipulation and pressure. One from healing.
”When someone shows how they’ve healed a deep existential wound, we witness it with a feeling of gratitude. A deep wisdom. We recognize their soul’s generosity in taking on such horror so that it might be removed from circulation forever. This is another kind of power. And as we grapple with power in the abusive sense, let us also stay tethered to this one. It’s not diversion. It’s not a bypass. It will make us brave and unblinking as we face the worst of what human beings have done, and it will show us how to respond.”
We may not be able to influence the great shadow play currently in front of us. We may plead, petition, pick up torches and demonstrate to politicians and leaders to act in different ways. And that has its place, certainly to voice our outrage and demand justice for the innocent. But I believe the greatest source of change comes from being unwavering in our daily stance, in our own environments. To remind ourselves of our agency. And to turn inward for the sake of healing what needs to be healed, so that we can pour beauty, active hope, fire, love outward and allow those around us to exhale and expand too.
Healing is not a luxury saved for calmer times. For those not on the frontline of war, this is the frontline for the rest of us. It is how our future has a different outcome to what we are dealing with today.
In my personal case, my path is that of reparenting the self. To make sure the boy inside is safe and my family around me is not subjected to the poison from a pain inflicted on me. That is the way out. That is my way through.
I cannot orate a solution fit for the scale of this suffering. I don’t think any single voice can. And I will not pretend we are fine. We are clearly not. But I will also not pretend we are powerless. We have story. We can inspire others to a more truthful language. In the relationship to themselves, others, and what they’re here to create. We have the means to move others by our own actions.
So I ask you, what is your rebellion?
What small act makes your world less hospitable to cruelty? What practice is helping you stay human? Tell me. And tell each other.
If enough of us speak those practices aloud, we give each other an instruction for the soul. And just maybe a first direction to understand where to go from here.
I’m Roel W.T. Cruys. Writer. Dad. Poet. Narrative architect.
Tea for the Curious is an exploration on human, nature, art.
Professionally, I collaborate with leaders, innovators, and artists to find their Ethos and the language to communicate it.
Connect with me here or here.