How We Got Here
Some days I look around and wonder
how we drifted into this weird century
where people act like they’ve forgotten
we all share the same air,
and the same fragile condition of being human.
Where politics turned into a sport
played with tongues like knives,
and cynicism became a badge of honor
instead of a warning sign.
Where hateful rhetoric rolls out
as casually as weather reports,
and no one seems startled or embarrassed anymore.
Where the Bible is quoted like a drive-through menu,
picking only the verses that flatter the moment,
and never the ones that demand humility.
Where truth feels like a house
with its foundation cracked,
and everyone keeps living in it
as if the floor won’t eventually give way.
Where rights once understood as universal
are now treated like bargaining chips,
and the dignity of a stranger
is somehow up for debate.
I ask myself how we arrived here,
not in a single leap,
but in a slow, lazy forgetting.
A forgetting of patience,
of listening,
of the quiet work of seeing one another
without suspicion.
Maybe the path back isn’t dramatic or traumatic,
Maybe it’s built in small refusals,
refusing to join the cacophony of contempt,
refusing to treat cruelty as normal,
refusing to let exhaustion harden into apathy.
Maybe it’s choosing to remember
that society is not an abstract thing
but a collection of choices
made by ordinary people
who still have the power
to turn toward decency
one conversation,
one moment,
one act at a time.
And maybe...just maybe...
that’s how we begin again.
