Welcome back to Infinite Threads. I’m your host, Bob.
There comes a moment when your body knows something is wrongeven before your mind can name it.
You see someone with power—someone who holds sway over others,who’s been trusted to lead or protect—and something about what they’re doing doesn’t sit right.
Not because it’s loud or violent.But because it’s cold.Because it’s careless.Because something human is missing from the equation.
And when you feel that…when you name it aloud…someone will almost always say,“You’re overreacting.”“You just don’t understand how the system works.”
But I want to say something different.I want to say it clearly.You are not crazy.
You are seeing something real.Something that far too many have learned to ignore.
Power—especially unchecked power—changes people.
It doesn’t always begin with malice.But it often ends with detachment.
People in positions of control slowly forget how to feel what others feel.They begin to believe their role justifies the distance.That the uniform, the title, the office, or the doctrinesomehow makes them immune to the ordinary rules of empathy.
And the more disconnected they become,the more the system rewards them.
Most institutions don’t want emotionally honest people at the top.They want function.They want results.They want someone who won’t ask too many questions.
So people who start out with conscience and compassionstart to adapt.
They pull back.They shut down.They make decisions based on protocol instead of presence.
They learn how to speak in the language of policyinstead of the language of people.
This doesn’t excuse the harm.
But it does explain why some people seem to lose their soulas they climb higher.
Not because power revealed who they really were—but because it eroded who they used to be.
And if you’ve been on the other side of that—if you’ve watched someone slowly lose sight of what matters—you know the ache it leaves behind.
It’s like losing someone who’s still standing in front of you.
There’s a dangerous assumption we carry:that people in charge must know what they’re doing.That authority is a kind of wisdom.
But so often, it’s just repetition.Someone who learned how to follow the ruleseven when those rules do harm.
That’s why, when you ask questions—when you feel something’s off—it can be so deeply unsettling.
Because you’re breaking the spell.You’re waking up to the gap between what should beand what actually is.
And once you see that gap,you can’t unsee it.
This kind of clarity is painful.
It isolates you.It makes you question whether you’re the problem.
Especially when others around you stay silent.Especially when they look at the same injustice and shrug.
And still, I want you to know—
Your sensitivity is not a flaw.Your discomfort is not a weakness.Your anger is not a failure of love.
These things are signs that you’re still intact.
Still human.
You don’t have to understand every system to recognize when a person’s eyes have gone cold.You don’t have to study the law to feel when someone’s words carry no compassion.
Your heart tells you.Your body tells you.And that knowing is sacred.
Many of us were taught to respect titles,to defer to uniforms,to assume that people with credentials must have our best interests at heart.
But that trust only works when the person inside the role remembers who they are.When they remember that every decision touches someone’s life.
When they forget that—when they replace care with control—they stop leading.They start managing.Or worse… controlling.
And those who support them?
The ones who see the cracks but say nothing?
Some are afraid.Some are complicit.Some believe that silence keeps them safe.
But silence is not neutral.
Silence is where harm hides.
If you’ve spoken up—if you’ve lost people for refusing to look away—I want to acknowledge that pain.
You’ve likely been called dramatic, disloyal, naïve, or emotional.
You may have wondered if it’s worth it.
But let me tell you what I know:
It is worth it.
Because the world doesn’t change through silence.It changes through clarity.And clarity is something you’ve earned—by seeing what others don’t want to see.
We’re not here to save the powerful.We’re here to stay intact while living in a world where power often harms.
To remember what protection is supposed to mean.To hold fast to love that doesn’t excuse cruelty.To become the kind of person who never loses the thread of their own heart—no matter how cold the world becomes.
Next time, we’ll talk about how to protect that heart.How to stay soft without being swallowed.How to set boundaries that still leave room for love to breathe.
But for now, hold onto this truth:
You are not imagining what you see.You are not wrong to feel what you feel.And the more you stay true to that,the more you help the rest of us wake up, too.
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