I’m so fucking tired. And I’m so fucking angry. And I’m so fucking deflated.

Every day, it’s something else.

Something horrific.

Something senseless.

Something deeply, violently human.

One day it’s Jews lighting candles for Hanukkah on a beach and getting slaughtered.

One day it’s kids studying for a fucking final, gunned down in a classroom they thought was safe.

One day it’s settlers rampaging through Palestinian towns, torching homes, uprooting lives while the world shrugs.

One day it’s a hospital in Gaza, bombed again.

One day it’s a synagogue defaced in LA.

One day it’s a terrifying livestream sandwiched between ads.

One day it’s an unarmed teenager.

One day it’s an old man.

One day it’s a protester.

One day it’s a journalist.

One day it’s someone just trying to live their fucking life.

And what do we do?

We tut tut. We issue statements. We condemn in our best somber voice.

We demand to know “do you condemn this?” before we ask “are you okay?”

We send thoughts and prayers. We hold a vigil. We post a flag. We pick a team like it’s a bloodsport. We wait for the algorithm to move on.

And then it happens again.

And again.

And again.

And I am so fucking tired of pretending this isn’t us.

That this isn’t who we are.

“This isn’t what we stand for.”

“This doesn’t represent our values.”

Bullshit.

This is exactly who we are.

We are a species that has learned to make gods out of identity and corpses out of difference.

We are scared, broken creatures, trained to lash out before we look inward.

We are desperate for certainty and comfort, even if it means burying our empathy in concrete.

We treat our history like a weapon and our trauma like a shield.

We justify.

We minimize.

We rationalize.

We weaponize OUR pain until it becomes permission to cause more.

Every lash-out creates more hatred.

And every ounce of hatred becomes justification for the next act of violence.

And the wheel keeps spinning.

We kill. We grieve. We blame.

We feed our children the same poison we drank.

We vow to remember. And then we do it all over again.

This is the wheel of samsara.

This is the trauma cycle made global. This is the world we keep choosing—again and again.

And I don’t know what the fuck to do with it anymore.

I’m exhausted.

I’m heartbroken.

I’m furious.

I’m lost.

And I still, somehow, want to believe we can do better. I have to. Because the alternative is giving up—and I’m not ready to do that. Not yet.

Something has to give.

We have to stop worshipping identity more than life.

We have to stop believing that OUR people matter more than THOSE people.

We have to stop letting empathy stop at our borders, our religions, our politics, our tribes.

We have to stop believing that righteousness is a substitute for humanity.

We have to stop pretending violence will save us.

It won’t. It never has. It never will.

Violence does not purify.

Violence does not heal.

Violence does not liberate.

Violence only replicates itself, like a virus. It does not make space for justice.

It devours the air justice needs to breathe.

It rots the soul of the one who pulls the trigger just as surely as it breaks the body of the one who takes the bullet.

If your liberation demands the slaughter of civilians, it is not liberation.

If your justice requires the silencing of another’s grief, it is not justice.

If your freedom depends on someone else’s chains, it is not freedom.

If your safety requires the erasure of someone else’s existence, you will never be safe.

We are all hurting.

But pain doesn’t have to make us cruel.

Grief doesn’t have to make us monsters.

Fear doesn’t have to make us fascists.

Somewhere along the way, we forgot that.

Somewhere along the way, we started believing that survival means becoming unrecognizable to ourselves.

That to protect “our own,” we must abandon everyone else.

That is a lie.

It’s long past time to tell the truth.

The truth is: no one’s life is more valuable than anyone else’s.

No one’s grief is more sacred.

No one’s trauma gives them a monopoly on righteousness.

We either believe in human dignity—or we don’t.

We either believe in life—or we don’t.

This isn’t about left or right.

It isn’t about Israel or Palestine.

It isn’t about Muslim or Christian or Jew.

It isn’t about Democrats or Republicans.

It’s about humanity.

It’s about empathy.

It’s about deciding whether or not we want to keep living in a world that normalizes death.

I’m tired of watching people die while we argue semantics.

I’m tired of seeing footage of murdered children while adults play geopolitical chess.

I’m tired of excusing moral cowardice.

I want a world where we choose life.

I want a world where no kid has to learn what shrapnel sounds like.

Where no parent has to identify their child from a pile of bodies.

Where no student has to text their last words from under a desk.

Where no one is murdered for praying, protesting, speaking, or existing.

That world is possible.

But not if we keep doing this.

Not if we keep pretending our side is always right.

Not if we keep clinging to pain as our primary identity.

Not if we keep choosing vengeance over vision.

The future we need will not be built by those who worship the past.

It can only be built by those who refuse to keep killing in its name.

We can’t fix everything.

But we can stop pretending we’re helpless.

We’re not. We’re just afraid.

But fear is not destiny. Fear is not fate. It’s just a feeling.

If we can sit with that fear— if we can hold it without handing it off as hate— if we can look into the eyes of the “other” and see our own reflection, if we can stay in the discomfort of our shared grief, we can begin something better.

Something human. Something holy. Something new.

I don’t know how we get there. I’m sorry. I really am. But I don’t. I just know we need to get there.

I just know we need to keep searching for a way.