I am sorely tired of doom scrolling, the world feels so heavy and has done for years and I am sure that I am not alone in feeling that. We see a world torn by war, poisoned by politics, wounded by the very hands meant to heal it. It’s hard not to lose heart when every headline seems to echo despair. But even in the darkest hours, there are still threads of gold, still songs being sung, poems being written, paintings being brushed into being. Art endures where violence tries to silence; music rises even from the rubble. These are not luxuries, they are lifelines. They remind us of who we are beyond the chaos, and who we still have the power to become.
The world groans under the weight of sorrow, so many voices crying out, so many hands grasping at justice, at peace, at something better. War blots the sky and power bends truth into shadows, meaning becomes mess.
But …. I believe …
Hope lives in creation. It lives in the way we turn sorrow into stories, pain into poems, silence into symphonies. Every time someone makes something beautiful in the face of suffering, it is an act of rebellion against despair. So yes, the world is wounded, but it is still singing. And as long as we keep making, listening, dreaming, and daring to imagine a different future, we are not lost. Let us hold fast to that. Let us raise our children not only to survive the world, but to shape it with words and colours and courage. The darkness is real, but so is the light we all carry.
Hope is not blind, nor is it soft, it is the fierce thing that survives the fire. It is not naïve to believe in better; it is an act of courage. We may not see the end of these struggles, not soon, but we are not without power. Every small kindness, every truth spoken, every time we choose compassion over despair, we plant something for those who come after, we are gardeners tending the soul of the world in the cold of winter. The flowerbeds of this place we call “home” are still to bloom, and though its it may look, dull, dead and strewn with rubble. The seeds we call carry are still alive. We all carry a trowel. Let us not stop planting into the dark.