Listen

[undated]

They believe society exists because people agree to be good.
That is the fairy tale they teach children.

Society exists because consequences used to be unavoidable. Because refusal carried weight. Because shame functioned. Because fear restrained those who would not restrain themselves.

They dismantled all of that and replaced it with language.

Now everything is negotiated. Every boundary provisional. Every rule conditional. They debate morality the way merchants haggle prices — what can be bent, what can be excused, what can be reframed until it no longer resembles what it was meant to stop.

They call this compassion. It is administrative cowardice.

They have turned suffering into background noise. It plays constantly, like traffic, like rain. They grow used to it. They adapt. Adaptation is their proudest skill. They adapt to injustice, to cruelty, to decay, and then call adaptation resilience.

Resilience without resistance is surrender.

I see them curate their lives carefully. What they consume. What they ignore. What they share publicly to signal concern while ensuring nothing is required of them privately. They are experts in appearing troubled while remaining comfortable.

Comfort has become the highest good. Everything that threatens it is labeled dangerous. Discipline threatens comfort. Judgment threatens comfort. Truth threatens comfort. So these things are treated as violence.

Actual violence barely registers unless it interrupts convenience.

They say the system is broken. They say it with relief. Broken systems do not demand courage. Broken systems absolve participants. No one is responsible if everyone is trapped.

They are not trapped. They are accommodated.

I watch them outsource conscience to institutions. To committees. To policies. To experts. They want morality handled professionally, at a distance, sanitized. They do not want to feel it in their hands.

They have convinced themselves that intent matters more than outcome. That meaning is determined internally. That harm without malice is forgivable. This is how entire cities learn to destroy themselves politely.

They confuse being informed with being good. They consume documentaries, headlines, statistics. They know exactly what is happening — and then they do nothing. Knowledge has become a substitute for action. Awareness has become a form of sedation.

They say what can one person do?
They say it constantly.
They say it together.

That chorus is the sound of consent.

I do not believe in reform. Reform assumes a shared desire to improve. That desire no longer exists. What exists is preservation. People do not want change. They want reassurance that change is unnecessary.

They reward those who tell them they are already decent.

The language has rotted first. Words no longer cut. They blur. They slide. They soften everything they touch. “Mistake.” “Misstep.” “Miscommunication.” Euphemisms stacked like insulation, keeping consequence out.

When words fail, reality intervenes. It always does. They act surprised every time.

I feel no urgency anymore. Urgency belongs to those who still hope persuasion might work. Hope has passed. What remains is alignment. Everything in place. Everything clear.

The notebooks are evidence of restraint, not obsession. Proof of patience. Proof that nothing here is sudden. They like to imagine madness because madness excuses them from listening.

They will not listen anyway.

They will ask why this happened endlessly, as if causation were a mystery. They will convene panels. They will publish reports. They will promise reforms that require no sacrifice. They will continue exactly as before.

They always do.

This city does not need debate. Debate is indulgence. It allows everyone to speak and no one to act. What it needs is a moment so undeniable that silence becomes impossible.

Silence is their greatest weapon. I am taking it away.

They will hate me for this. Hatred is familiar to them. It costs nothing. What they will not be able to do — at least briefly — is ignore.

That is enough.