i don’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said.
it’s all just… heavy right now.
i’m not here to make a political statement.
i like to think i’ve lived my life in a way where friends and strangers alike never have to wonder where my values lie.
i was born into a dictatorship — the longest ongoing civil war in the world.
i was undocumented for the first nine years of my life.
i was raised by freedom fighters and rebels who risked everything for democracy.
i feel a deep yearning for a home i never grew up in.
i feel the pain of a people i have never met.
maybe that’s why it all feels so personal.
the aunts and uncles who raised me.
my grandfather, who made sure i had a childhood in the midst of war.
all the adults who tried to protect me from the reality outside the borders of a refugee camp.
none of us choose where we’re born.
and too often, the people in power do not represent the people at all.
so many countries are run by gangs disguised as governments.
if you go back far enough, we are all children of immigrants or refugees.
it is in our nature to migrate.
to search for something better — for safety, for dignity, for our children.
i feel that heavy, sinking-in-your-chest ache about the state of the world.
those who have known suffering, injustice, and oppression
often become the most resilient, the most driven, the most compassionate.
as twisted and heartbreaking as it is,
those who know deep pain are the ones who recognize it in others.
you might not think your feelings matter — but they do.
you might not think your pain matters — but they do.
because it is the most human thing to feel empathy.
to hold the pain of those you may never meet.
i like to think that this all matters.
because this, too, is a human experience.
we are not separate from each other any more than our head is separate from our legs.
we have labeled and divided our body into parts —
but it has always been whole.
it has always been connected.
cut off your legs, and your head cannot walk.
remove any animal from the food chain, and it messes up the entire ecosystem.
we exist in relation to everything else.
an infection in one part of the body, left untreated, will spread.
and the answer is not to cut off the limb —
the world is one living body.
but have labeled and divided ourselves into parts.
as with any autoimmune disease —
and the mistake we keep on repeating,
is recognizing our own self as enemy.
“but it has always been like this.”
“we are just more aware of it now because of social media.”
i was born into this life.
as a child growing up in a refugee camp, i prayed and prayed. every night. despite being raised buddhist and buddha was never one to answer prayers,
“can anybody out there hear us? can you help us?”
and now, i know the answer:
yes. we can hear each other.
