because you weren't made to give up. ↓

There's a photo of me when I was five, holding an umbrella. It looks like it's raining but it isn't. My grandmother is pouring water from above to create the illusion. I didn't know the difference. I could feel the water, so I stood there braced, holding my umbrella as though it mattered.

We don't just respond to reality. We respond to what we believe we're standing in. How much energy do we spend bracing for storms? Conserving. Protecting. Building systems to shield ourselves from collapse when the storm might not even be real. Someone's just pouring water and we've mistaken it for weather.

Climate collapse is real. Inequality is real. But I think many of us are solving the wrong problem. We're preparing for what we think is inevitable when we could be creating what's possible. We're conserving energy for endurance when we could be channelling it towards imagination.

A child holding an umbrella in manufactured rain isn't wrong, she's responding rationally to her perception. Once you see the grandmother with the watering can, everything changes. Not "How do I survive this storm?" but "What am I actually standing in?" Not because the water stops, but because you realise you have more choices than you thought.

Stay curious. Stay courageous.