I want to talk about the world today. I feel myself getting closer to a crash out and those aren’t fun, or productive. Funny that these feelings and the intense push to share these thoughts fall on 9/11, 24 years later. I was living on LI at the time, going to homeroom in middle school. As I walked down the halls, still clueless of what happened, I saw several of my classmates running and crying. I got to my homeroom, and heard the news. They had it playing on the TV. Many of my classmates, neighbors, friends, family had relatives in those buildings. My uncle lived across the river and could see it all clearly.
Don’t forget to ground yourself in this crazy world we’re experiencing. This week alone, on Tiktok, I witnessed the shooting of Charlie Kirk, the heartbreaking brutal stabbing of Iryna Zarutska, school shootings, revolutions, bombings, genocide, Epstein files, never-ending attack on women, POC, disabled, and people who are different, destroying of mother nature… And the only one that seems to be plastered all over the news more than any of the others is Charlie Kirk.
I’m not celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death, but he died on the hill he created. I understand why people are saying “I have no empathy” for him, because he was a shitty person, don’t get me wrong.
Empathy must thrive through things like this. We cannot allow ourselves to be desensitized to the state of the world today. If we all stooped to his level, there would be no empathy at all. The job of a narcissist is to make everyone as miserable as them, to bring someone at a higher level down to theirs (and unfortunately, this country is run by them). We want nothing more than for them to taste their own medicine. It leads to pettiness, anger, violence, continuing the cycle of hurt and unhealed trauma. We cannot allow that. We are the generation of breaking cycles. Turn inward, ground yourself. Be better for yourself so you can be better for those around you. Create, express, share truths with open minds, total transparency. I used to think America was a melting pot, because of all the different cultures in one country sharing beliefs and delicious food recipes. As more and more truths come out, it’s clear that we’ve been lied to and betrayed, made to believe if we followed their teachings we would be taken care of. Instead, we’re just constantly being pitted against each other (successfully so far) as they take every penny we make (we destroy our bodies and work our lives away just to be one paycheck away from homelessness) with insurance that doesn’t pay out when you need it but is required with literally everything, subscriptions, sell cheaply made things with the design to break and keep needing repair, charge for and gatekeep basic necessities, take away crucial education and basic rights, use AI to brainwash and take away boredom which is where healing, creativity and independency are developed, and slowly isolate us from the rest of the world. Yet, we are too busy fighting each other than fighting the real issue, to notice that this is happening right in front of our eyes, right. now.
Fortunately, we are the creators of our own universe and we can choose love.
We can choose UNCONDITIONAL empathy.
We can choose to understand that that person you spilled your whole heart to, even hid some of the best parts of yourself away for acted out of hurt and unhealed traum. and instead of sitting with themselves, they chose to continue passing that hurt around. I’m still going to love you and hope that you one day choose to sit through your pain and be better. Instead of allowing that pain that wasn’t mine to bear in the first place to change who I am, I vow to never allow someone to influence me in a way that causes me to lose myself.
We can choose to understand that we have to love that person from afar because they’re no good for you. Because they don’t know any better.
We can choose to understand that Charlie Kirk was not one for the people.
But his children and his wife, and everyone else who was at that debate, did not deserve to have that memory ingrained in their brains for the rest of their lives. You cannot condemn gun violence and celebrate it. If we ever want peace, if we are ever to break the cycle, we need to be better. period.
Imogen Healing 