When the World Is Loud and Violent
Lately, I’ve been feeling lost. In my head. In the world.
There is so much violence happening around us. I know it’s always been there. But right now it feels utterly relentless. Inescapable. Loud. And fucking exhausting.
And still, it is our job to keep looking.
The people in power want us to look away. They want us numb, compliant, distracted. They want us tired enough that we stop paying attention. And resisting this, choosing to stay awake, takes real effort. It takes energy. It takes courage. And that’s a lot to ask of already overwhelmed people.
Black and Indigenous communities have been telling us this for generations: if they will do it to us, they will do it to you. And for a long time, many of us refused to listen. We told ourselves we were safe. That it wasn’t our problem. That it was isolated. Rare. Complicated.
It absolutely wasn’t. And it isn’t.
We have been weak. We have been spineless. And now we are being asked, required, to stand up.
Standing up doesn’t look the same for everyone. Not everyone can be in the streets. That doesn’t mean you do nothing. It means you find your way to resist.
You call your representatives.
You vote, every damn time, not just when it’s convenient.
You say, clearly and without apology, that you are against human beings being gunned down in broad daylight by people in positions of authority.
Because let’s be very clear: our tax dollars are paying for this. Yours. Mine. And silence is not fucking neutrality, it IS consent.
I know it hurts to look. I know it’s painful to accept that this is our reality. But this is our reality and nearly everyone of us have played a part. Turning away doesn’t make this shit stop being true.
This isn’t a soft post. It isn’t fluffy. It isn’t about art in the way you might expect from me. And honestly, I don’t have it in me right now to wrap this up in something prettier.
What I do know is this: we each play a part.
I ask myself every damn day am I being too passive? Am I doing enough? Could I be braver?
I’ve been finding it hard to create lately. Not because I’m uninspired, but because when the world feels like it’s on fire, it’s hard to justify taking up space. It’s hard to say, look at me, look at my work, when so many people are fighting just to survive this shit show.
And maybe that’s part of the work too, figuring out how to exist, create, and take up space without looking away. How to hold grief and responsibility and still show up. How to be human in a system that profits from our disconnection.
I don’t have a neat ending for this. Just a reminder…to myself as much as to you, that staying awake matters. That paying attention matters. That what you do, even quietly, still counts.
I don’t get to, you don’t get to, we don’t get to opt out of this world.
But we do get to decide how we are to going to fucking show up in it.
XOXO,
Tiffany