(& What that Says about the World we’re Living in).
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Remember when caring about human life was not a statement or stance?
It wasn’t something you whispered in private messages for fear of professional consequences. It was simply assumed. And yet, somewhere along the way, arguably as many have lost their way, compassion has become controversial.
Notice I didn’t say cruelty or indifference, but compassion.
Today, you can speak calmly about human suffering without naming parties, attacking leaders, or even assigning blame, and still be met with silence, discomfort, or quiet warnings to “be careful.”
You may even be told, gently, that while people agree with you, they’re afraid to say so publicly. Afraid to like and share your post about helping humanity heal as if being seen aligning with something as dangerous as empathy could really cost them.
That should stop us all.
Because when compassion becomes something to hide, it tells us that something fundamental has shifted—not in our values, but in the systems that shape our behavior.
This isn’t about politics. This speaks to permission, even freedom.
We are living in a time when many people no longer feel permitted to be fully human in public. Moral conviction is now treated as risky business, and silence is framed as professionalism or even self-preservation. Caring openly is mistaken for controversy simply because it disrupts the comfort of distance.
Compassion asks us to see people as people, not categories or statistics.
It asks us to slow down, feel, and acknowledge suffering without immediately justifying it or explaining it away. That is deeply problematic in cultures that reward speed, certainty, and compliance.
So compassion gets rebranded.
It becomes “too emotional.”
“Too sensitive.”
“Too political.”
“Too much.”
But what it really is—stubbornly—is honest.
And as I’ve experienced firsthand as the black sheep of my family, honesty always unsettles systems that benefit from numbness, dysregulation, and/or denial.
What’s striking is that the fear doesn’t show up as opposition. It arrives as whispers: I agree, but I can’t say that. This resonates, but I have a job. Thank you for saying what so many of us feel.
My DMs lately have been revealing. They illustrate how compassion hasn’t disappeared but has gone underground in many instances. In environments driven by power, productivity, profit, or control, compassion becomes unfavorable. And when something is bothersome long enough, it gets reframed as dangerous, political, or unbefitting.
That speaks to why so many people are anxious, protecting themselves from the consequences of being human in places that punish it.
People still feel. They still care. But they have learned, often through pain and disappointment, that caring openly can cost them safety, status, or stability. So they ration their humanity by expressing it privately, cautiously, behind closed doors.
This is how a culture slowly forgets itself.
When compassion is confined to private spaces, public life becomes colder, harsher, and even more performative. We start speaking in abstractions instead of truths. We argue positions instead of acknowledging pain. We protect our roles instead of our values.
And over time, we begin to confuse detachment with intelligence, neutrality with virtue, and silence with wisdom.
But silence is not neutral when people are suffering.
It is simply avoidant.
There is something deeply sobering about realizing that saying “I care about human life” can be perceived as a bold act. Not because it is extreme, but because it refuses to harden.
That refusal matters.
Because compassion is not naïveté. It’s the ability to stay present with complexity without surrendering your humanity.
And in a world that increasingly rewards armor, compassion looks like rebellion.
Maybe that’s exactly what this moment is asking of us.
Not louder outrage or better arguments, but braver tenderness. The kind that says: I see what’s happening, and I refuse to look the other way. I will not reduce victims of violent crimes to talking points. I will not become desensitized.
Meaningful change does not occur because everyone feels the same way privately. We drive out injustice with our willingness to say, “This matters,” especially when it’s excruciatingly uncomfortable.
If compassion feels controversial right now, it’s because it’s so powerful. And power—real power—has always made fragile systems nervous.
So the next time you feel tension when you speak from the heart, let that be a reminder that you’re touching truth in a time that has forgotten how to hold it openly.
Staying human was never supposed to be radical. But if it is, then perhaps staying human is exactly the work.
~
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