A Call for Compassion in Dark Times

When I was a child, the four of us would sit around the dinner table every night, eating my mother's incredible home-cooked meals and discussing politics. These lively debates were the heartbeat of our home. My parents frequently disagreed. And they always saw my brother and me as active participants, worthy of being heard.

I want to bring that vision back: A world where everyone is welcome at the table, where we listen to each other with compassion and open hearts. Where we stop seeing others as threats and return to seeing everyone as humans on the same journey. We all hope for a better future for ourselves and our children. We all search for meaning. We all suffer when we lose a loved one. We all fall down, and if we can, get back up again. 

For those of us grieving the results of the American election last Tuesday, for those of us who feel lost in the darkness, for those of us who feel hope spreading thin as a fragile sheet of ice over a winter pond—this moment calls for us to raise our voices.

Now, more than ever, is the time when we storytellers must speak out. We are facing a world of escalating challenges—multiple wars, climate catastrophes on a weekly basis, the rapid and uncertain rise of generative AI, ever increasing economic inequality, the fight for basic human rights, and so much more. The pain, the suffering, the unknowns—these can leave us feeling overwhelmed, paralyzed, and disconnected.

But we writers, thinkers, and creators have a unique power. We don’t have to react to the chaos. Instead, we can respond—from a place of love, compassion, wisdom, and understanding. And we can respond from our creativity itself. We can envision and imagine a better future, and we can offer that vision to the world. 

With our words, we can shine a light that others desperately need. We can guide people through the darkness, showing them that there is another way to navigate these turbulent times. We can remind them that everyone—fathers, sisters, best friends—is engaged in their own struggles, too. No one is the enemy; we are all in this together.

I hold a vision for the future. One where we build community once again. One where we return to the family table with respect, even if we disagree. One where our differences no longer divide us, but rather become the fabric of our collective strength.

Let us commit, my fellow storytellers, right now: We will be the light. Together, we can respond with love, unite, and help steer this world toward a better, brighter future.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

 Hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom – poets, visionaries – realists of a larger reality.

- Ursula K. Le Guin, 2014