What do you do, or try to do, when someone is beating you? The common answers I assume would be to fight back or get away. In some situations this is impossible to do, or time has to pass before meaningful action can be taken while using mitigation measures in the meantime.

Time has passed since 2020, and maybe more importantly, 2021. I find that sometimes hard to believe, because it seemed the world stopped at quite a few points and we never left 2020. And surely, I thought, this couldn’t be reality. I was instilled like many others with heart-stopping fear. I was so sensitive all over at times that I could feel every muscle in my head and neck while I thought hard about the foreseeable future.

The world did not totally stop, but for a significant amount of the population it did. And people were extinguished, the magnificent and manifold points in the universe they expressed in glorious human form, warts and all – gone forever. As the culling goes on, millions are adding up now.

It’s been major escalation on a worldwide scale, tragedy that in a way has to be understood via screens (reading, watching, discerning) to take in its scope. And also due to the fact that many of us have been isolated and damaged by the sudden stopping of movement and free speech. Despite this, I think there is value in comprehending it, no matter how difficult that may be. No matter the agreeable or acceptable excuses. And not to go all Bon Jovi on you, but we’ve got each other, and that’s a lot. There is kinship and solidarity to be found, and people who have thankfully been spared by saline-injecting heroes who can now be empowered by those who have stood firm to speak their truths and share their experiences without fear. Just one aspect of the universe that once recognized, valued, and cared for fluttered back from certain extinction to shine as bright as ever, leaving countless points of light in the afterglow.

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