The ship is sinking. The house is burning.
While the leaders of the East and the West talk about each other with an air of superiority. The leaders of black and white. The leaders of men and women. Each claiming moral high ground. Each pointing to the other’s failures as proof of their own righteousness. Rejoicing among themselves over their own good traits. Breaking off from one another into sects. And the vast majority of people who live under that leadership suffer. The suffering looks different in different places. But it is suffering.
871,000
deaths a year linked to loneliness — about 100 every hour
1 in 6
people worldwide are lonely. Among the young, 1 in 5
2.3 billion
nearly one in three people alive, food insecure
673 million
faced hunger in 2024
316 million
used drugs in 2023 — up more than a fifth in a decade
1 billion+
living with a mental health disorder
Escapism has become a lifestyle. Coping has replaced healing. We are medicating symptoms while the disease deepens. The world is getting richer in information and poorer in connection.
That weight has a name. Our tradition calls it dhulm. We usually translate it as injustice, but the older meaning is simpler: a thing placed somewhere it doesn't belong.
