Awakening from the Slumber: Letting the Scabs Fall Away...

There comes a quiet moment when you realize you have been asleep. Not the gentle rest of night, but a deeper slumber—a timeout from everything that once made you feel whole. For a stretch of years the world’s impact dictated every step, every thought. Fear overrode common sense. Societal tolerance and mercy contracted. That fear burrowed deep into the collective psyche and, for far too many, altered the shape of logical thought itself.

Looking back across the years from 2019 to now, the pattern feels almost textbook. What began as rising polarization and algorithmic amplification of outrage accelerated into something sharper. A global health crisis arrived and, almost overnight, everyday life was reordered around risk and restriction. Distance became virtue; proximity became suspect. Institutions that once claimed authority struggled under the weight of uncertainty, while public discourse hardened into camps that spoke past one another. Mercy narrowed. Disagreement was frequently recast as danger. Many of us retreated—some into physical isolation, others into curated digital silos—because the alternative felt exhausting or unsafe.

The years that followed did not restore equilibrium so much as reveal how durable the new reflexes had become. Economic strain, geopolitical conflict, cultural flashpoints, and the rapid advance of technology each arrived layered on top of frayed trust. Societies kept discovering fresh reasons to stumble: new villains to name, new justifications for suspicion, new excuses to postpone the harder work of listening. History’s old lesson repeated itself with modern tools—fear still proved more mobilizing than nuance, and blame remained easier to outsource than to own.

I took a different path than that which was demanded by society as a whole and as such, it became one that required shelter from the turmoil that enveloped the world; a path that fulfilled its purpose and now seeks an unapologetic release. 

Inside the new walls that now surround me I embrace a hard-won peace. Slowly, almost tentatively, the crusty scabs of what has been begin to loosen and fall away, exposing skin newly invigorated. With that soft new skin comes the quiet invitation to reincorporate the practices once set aside—those small, sacred acts of presence, ritual, and inner listening that were gently laid down under the weight of daily demands and the relentless stress of a world in upheaval. What was postponed in survival can now be welcomed back, not as obligation, but as nourishment for the path ahead.

The world outside has not learned. It has not changed in any fundamental way. It will continue to chafe at the soul. Yet the season of safety in isolation has passed.

To accept that every person walks their own path is not to turn a blind eye to their actions. It is simply to recognize when one’s words are not yet ready to be heard. The time has come to let go, and to let be.

I step forward now—not in naïve hope that the world has grown wiser, but in the quieter knowledge that I no longer need its permission to move.

In the end, how we perceive the world shapes every reaction we offer it. A fear-based lens turns every unfamiliar face into potential threat, every difference into danger, every uncertainty into a reason to contract and defend. From that posture the world appears hostile by default, and our steps grow smaller, guarded, reactive. A love-based—or perhaps more accurately, an acceptance-based—lens does not deny the existence of harm or foolishness. It simply refuses to let those realities become the sole architects of our inner weather. It allows space for curiosity alongside caution, for mercy alongside boundaries, for engagement without the constant demand that others first become safe or enlightened.

The world remains what it is: unfinished, stumbling, often unkind. Yet the quality of our days is decided less by its condition than by the filter through which we meet it. Choose fear and the scabs thicken again. Choose something closer to love—or at least to clear-eyed openness—and the newly exposed skin has room to breathe, to feel, to walk forward without needing the world’s approval to do so.

~ in quiet inclination ML