I am a collector of stories.
I watch people, I listen closely to them, and I eavesdrop on their conversations in person and on social media. I look for patterns and try to understand what's happening to us as a nation.
I've tried to put my finger on how I'm feeling lately, how I think so many of us are feeling out there.
It isn't outrage. We've been there for a while now if we've been paying attention at all.It isn't anger. That's familiar territory for people whose eyes have been opened to the ugliness.It isn't even grief. We have collectively and individually mourned for years at this point.
It's something else. I think it's cruelty sickness.
I sense a corporate emotional weariness in kind people these days, the accumulated scar tissue created when you've absorbed more bad news, predatory behavior, and attacks on decency than your reserves can manage. Sustained brutality will do that to the human soul.
There's only so much contempt for humanity our minds can process, until one day something snaps and we lose the ability to respond with the same urgency and resilience we once had. A low-grade hopelessness sets in, slowly replacing our activism with apathy and one day rendering us immobile.
Prolonged exposure to this kind of seemingly tireless barbarism begins to rob us of energy, to dishearten us to the point that we stop caring and opt-out. This is of course, by design. That is what those manufacturing this incessant enmity are counting on.
The fatigue of decent humans is the plan: inundate us with a million tiny crises, assail us with countless daily culture war battles, and batter us with endless legislative assaults—until we are gradually but decidedly crushed beneath the weight of it all. Eventually, we succumb to the numerous wounds of their boundless hatred, the suffering of those they victimize, and a steady stream of unanswerable questions about how and why human beings can be this perpetually cruel.
So what do we do? What do kind people who are sickened by cruelty do to get well? We tether ourselves to one another.
Now, more than ever, good and tired people need to cultivate compassionate community, stay connected to our tribes of affinity, and carry one another through the fatigue when it comes.We fill in the gaps among us, and we let those of us who feel strong enough today engage in the fight for those who need to catch their breath and renew their strength.We surround ourselves with people who value us not only for the work we do and the causes we support but for the inherently vulnerable beings with finite resources that we are; those who demand that we rest and encourage us to play and give us space to pause—so that we are not consumed by the brutality of the day.
My friends, community is medicinal, a restorative elixir for the soul, and we need such good togetherness medicine more than ever because we are exposed to more toxic trauma than we've ever been, and because the war against disparate humanity isn't going anywhere.
Injustice, inequity, discrimination, and suffering are hazardous to the hearts of good people and they should be. They will make us rightly sick and so we have to keep one another well.
The greatest defense we have in not becoming casualties of the trending cruelty is by inoculating ourselves with collective empathy.
Stay together, stay alive—and stay kind, friends.What are you doing right now to be in or create compassionate community? Let me know in the comments.
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
