There Is Still Beauty

Being Here and Resilient in a World on the Brink

Photo of a beach sunrise by Frank McKenna.

This weekend, I found myself on the phone with a friend, a writer whose words have always been a balm for others, but who now finds himself wrestling with the weight of it all. He’s low, and I can hear it in his voice—the weariness that has settled into his bones, the way his sentences trail off as if he’s forgotten how to believe in them. I tried to remind him how extraordinary he is, not just in the way he crafts stories that sing, but in the way he moves through the world with a heart full of grace. I told him what I’ve always known: that his work, his very being, holds value beyond measure.

But these are hard days for anyone to feel truly good.

The institutions around us are designed instead to make us doubt ourselves, to chip away at our confidence until all that’s left is a shell of who we were meant to be. It’s a fight, every day, to hold onto the truth of who we are.

I’ve been thinking lately about how we are all asked to walk through this world with a mask that doesn’t quite fit. It’s too tight around the mouth, making it hard to speak, and too loose at the eyes, making it hard to see. Yet, we’re expected to wear it with pride, as if it’s some kind of armor, when really it’s just a flimsy barrier between us and the world’s relentless hurt.

There are days when it feels impossible for me to breathe. The headlines, the conversations, the quiet despair that hums like a broken fan in the background of our lives—none of it can be ignored by anyone decent, and yet we are constantly told to act as if it can be. We are urged to smile through the pain, to still go to work, to still make dinner when we get home, to still carry on. But there is a truth we cannot sidestep: pretending doesn’t make the storms less real.

We are living in a time where everything feels like it’s on the brink of something—collapse, revelation, resurrection. But there is no guidebook for this kind of living, no manual that teaches us how to bear witness to a world falling apart and still find a way to hold ourselves together. The countless small violences we encounter every day add up. They accumulate in our bodies, like sediment in a riverbed, until we are heavy with the burden of what we cannot say, cannot express, cannot release.

And yet, we are expected to pretend. But pretending is a luxury most of us cannot afford. The world is too raw, too urgent, too racist, too misogynist, too classist, too homophobic, too ableist, too genocidal, too indifferent, too demanding of our full attention. We must face it as it is, in all its messy, complicated, heartbreaking reality.

It’s not easy to hold this truth. It’s not easy to acknowledge that the world is hurting, that we are hurting, and that there are no quick fixes or easy answers. But maybe that’s the point.

We're all standing in the middle of something massive, something considerable, like the air thickens each morning with a fog suffocating us. It’s in the way we shuffle through the days, clutching our phones, scrolling through the latest catastrophe, the next injustice, the endless parade of tragedies that flicker in and out of view like some twisted slideshow. It’s in the way we talk to each other, with voices dipped in weariness, eyes clouded with a kind of exhaustion that sleep can’t fix. We’re holding so much—grief, fear, anger, the heft of expectations, the ghosts of dreams we no longer dare to dream.

And still, we are here. We are alive.

But more than alive, we are resilient. We are the kind of resilient that doesn’t show itself in grand gestures or heroic acts, but in the small, quiet moments of resistance. In the way we still laugh, still find beauty in a world that seems determined to break us. In the way we still love, despite everything, despite the brokenness of it all. We’re holding so much, yes, but maybe—just maybe—we’re also holding each other, in ways we don’t always see, in ways that keep us from collapsing entirely.

Living with multiple sclerosis, with the grief of loved ones lost and the hardship of Blackness in America, I find myself marveling at the simple, defiant beauty of being alive—of making it back home, time and again, despite all the odds. The beauty of us still being here, still standing in the midst of all this loss, is a thing of wonder. It’s the quiet, unspoken marvel of simply existing when the world feels like it's splitting at the seams. To be able to sit with these words, to trace the lines of each letter, to let them sink into your mind when so many others are no longer here to do the same—that, in itself, is worth pausing for.

I am struggling with so much, just like many of you. My career, my relationships, my health, my hopes for the world—each one feels like it's hanging by a thread, ready to unravel at the slightest tug. This shit is hard. Every day feels like a test, like the world is daring me to find some way to keep going, to hold onto whatever scraps of hope are left. But damn it if I’m not happy to still be here.

Because there is such beauty all around us to be thankful for. It’s in the way the sun still rises every morning, even when the nights feel endless. It’s in the laughter of a child that cuts through the noise, reminding you that innocence still exists. It’s in the way music can lift you up, even when your heart is broken. It’s in the small things—the rustle of leaves in the wind, the way a friend’s voice can be a lifeline, the warmth of a dog curled up beside you, the taste of something sweet after a day full of bitterness.

There is beauty in the struggle itself, in the way we keep showing up, keep trying, keep loving, even when it feels like the world is crumbling beneath our feet. There’s beauty in the persistence, in the refusal to let go of the things that make us human. And maybe that’s what I’m holding onto most these days—the idea that even in the midst of all this pain, all this uncertainty, there is still something worth fighting for.

So yes, this shit is hard. But it’s also beautiful. And that, to me, is reason enough to keep going. Because as long as there is beauty, there is hope. And as long as there is hope, there is a chance to turn this struggle into something more—to turn it into a life that is not just survived, but lived, fully and deeply, with all the joy and pain that comes with it.

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