It’s year-end 23, and I’m struggling to articulate myself. I’ve missed all my deadlines this last month, but not through slackery or procrastination. I’ve been trimming away at this for weeks because it’s felt like all of my ruminative energy has been taken up simply witnessing and then processing the captive population of an entire nation be ruthlessly, calculatedly decimated. My social feeds have probably been the same as yours. Full of shredded children, fathers clutching dead babies, spartan emergency rooms in bombed-out hospitals, their floors washed with blood. Street executions. Shell-shocked families trapped under the dust and rubble of their refugee camp homes. And these reprehensible politicians everywhere, detestably gaslighting us all in plain sight with their horrific tactical divisive language and distractions. Really. I’ve struggled to know what to do about it. My role hasn’t felt clear.

I can’t believe I’m going to say it, but the pandemic was simpler. It activated and brought me to life in some critical ways. Validated my latent lifelong outsider sentiment, shone a new light on my lifestyle choices and spirit, and irrevocably popped the lid on a trail of thought and expression I’d have otherwise most probably kept quietly to myself. I mean, it’s hardly subversive to entertain that the last four years weren’t an audaciously straightforward attempt by whoever makes the rules to, for whatever reason, keep us beleaguered in a multitude of ways. And, strangely, you can work with that. It’s out in the open. The unseen made visible. I, for one, decoded it as a war on consciousness, and it continues to inspire me to live differently and work to research and embody my core beliefs. But this last couple of months has been something else. We’ve all witnessed previously unthinkable spectrums of unblinkered savagery, nefariousness and corruption rolling out over and around Gaza, and I can’t offer an answer that will help any of the people on the ground. And that tangles me up in a complex and unwelcome miasma of grief, heartbreak, and horror. Disbelief. Helplessness. Futility. That has ultimately, unfortunately, at times, left me teetering on the brink of a certain sense of resignation.

Being so far removed from any physical aspect of this crisis, I realistically, rationally accept there is nothing that I can do myself that will stop a single bomb being physically dropped on the civilians of Gaza. So, I’ve fallen to almost reverse engineering a life-positive mirror response to the perpetrators and supporters of these atrocities. I do all the things. Staying informed but also trying to disentangle and unhook myself from the deluge of emotions that this latest round of psychopathy floods me with, and instead find the space to consider how I can establish an empowering resistance, propagate solid ways to thrive and support others who stand in opposition to its influence in any way I can that is accessible to me.

Recentering, I reason that, like being reminded by the steward to grab the oxygen mask before you try and do anything else, trusting and aligning with personal Dharma empowers me, catalyses my efficacy, brings me closer to embodying wholeness, and improves my quality of interconnection. And I remember that time and again, I’ve been shown going in always provides the best way through and out. So that’s what I’ll do.

There is strength in unity. But still, we all have separate roles to play in this world, and not getting caught up in the 8 billion other versions of reality unfolding around us is a superpower, even when navigating it feels weird, tricky or unpleasant. It means being conscious of but detached from all the other stories, regardless of whether or not they horrify or appeal to our sensibilities, so that wherever we find ourselves we can each embody our unique individual spirit first and foremost. This absolutely doesn’t mean ignoring everything we don’t like. More so, it means living in the prescience of it and making more effort to create more of what we do. To think for ourselves and discover and offer solutions and answers derived from our own medicine. Our own energy. This is the work, and it always has been. But right now, in the daily flood and horror of the late-stage capitalist post-truth internet era, it’s more important than ever.

Gaza is loudly, painfully, horrifically shaking more of the collective from the depths of a slumber and pushing it across a threshold that needs to be breached. More people everywhere are sharply realising that at yet another most basic level, systems they have complacently trusted, unconsciously relied on or just brazenly ignored are totally broken, and they’re beginning to realise the trouble we’re all in. It’s (yet another) unprecedented revolutionary moment in human history that has the potential to change everything.

If, on the other hand, all this talk about revolution makes you cringe, you better get used to it because it isn’t my hyperbolic rhetoric. It’s not just me. We’re all witnessing the latest round of a for-real messy and violent paradigm shift that demands a complex internal and external reckoning. It’s a transparently weak, horrifically vicious escalation highlighting the desperation of the old systems that no longer represent support or serve us. But just because we recognise this doesn’t mean we can sit back and wait for everyone else to catch up. Where, who, and however we are, whatever type of weight we’re lifting and however we deliver it, even the codes that worked to bring us to our current levels of meaning, articulation, and awareness need an upgrade. There is no longer room for apathy, drift, or bypass of any kind now. We’ll only manage it if we keep pushing to find and accelerate our learning and remembrance. How we each play our part.

So, if you’ve been shaken out of your comfort zone again like I have, what is your response to this bona fide war on consciousness? How are you increasing your volume and vocalising your opposition? How are you establishing and committing to ongoing resistance? What does your revolution look like?

10 storeys up my high tower in full monk mode, looking out over a mutably moody, damp, windy mid-winter East London, mine is quieter and simpler than I thought it would be. More practical and less edgy, at least to start with. It’s going back to basics and not being made or allowing myself to doubt the legitimacy of my response by anyone, trusting the course my unique sensibilities and dynamics put me on and being less precious about sharing my complete opposition to the prevalent tide of barbarism and backwardness. Crossing over into 24 with that energy, it’s staying centred, minimising distractions, becoming more courageous, prioritising and accelerating this work, and finding new, hopefully more immediate ways that enable me to share it.

I’m sure we’re not even close to the high water mark of weird, deplorable and horrific things we’ll see and experience before these systems finally crumble and give way. But until that miraculous day arrives, my paths of enquiry, spiritual posture, upkeep, and ideas about a peaceful, non-violent, holistic non-compliance that leads to a complete transformation of functional society will remain at the forefront of my mind and be documented here.

You got this. Just keep going.

And all bless for 24.