I’ll keep reaching for you in the dust.

A weird, wandering thought I wish someone important would say out loud, even if it’s flawed, or doomed to upset everyone. I don’t think it solves anything. Probably best not to read.

(“The Hug” by Stella Stillwell)

The world doesn’t need one more frail ape howling their certainty into the darkness. We’re all tired of listening to our own outrage and wounded righteousness.

Israel and Gaza is one of those conflicts that makes you think the other side is insane.

One side:

“Oh, wow, so you’re defending genocide and child murder? Nice, you are a hate-filled delusional sheep. Go to hell.”

The other side:

“Oh wow, you’re okay with death cults using human shields as a marketing campaign? Blindly siding with the underdog and using a double standard to stick it to a beleaguered people you already hated? You’re a useful idiot.”

What a ride.

(“Turns Out Even Stella Is Blind” by Stella Stillwell)

But let’s step back and name what this is: You’re not stupid or evil, and neither am I.

We have different trust networks. Different bad guys. It’s an epistemology-level disconnect.

The impatience we have with each other implies the answers are obvious - - when they just aren’t. That’s the tragedy. The outrage that someone who seems reasonable is wrong about something so important.

It’s not going to get resolved in Substack comments. Sometimes I feel like one of the only people naming this meta problem - - not just in this conflict, but around every major issue: poverty, sustainability, disease, crime.

All I know is this: I didn’t choose my genes, my parents, or the time I was born. The shape of the world comes to me like threads of muted light through a tiny keyhole. I didn’t build this moment. I just woke up inside it.

Same for you.

Every conversation needs to start with that admission.

Sometimes I think of myself as a bald ape. Other times, if I’m feeling sentimental, I call myself a daughter of Earth - - one little clump of stardust perched on a pale blue dot, spinning through a cosmic bisque of electrons and empty space. That’s what I think we are: Empathetic Electrons.

Unlike rocks or light, I can suffer - - and sometimes, I can feel you suffer, too. Not always. But enough to make it hurt.

Sometimes I imagine speeches I wish someone important would say.

This morning I imagined someone standing up after the October 2025 ceasefire - - after the hostage returns, after everything - - just standing up and saying this:

To the families in Gaza.

To the broken in Israel.

To those scattered across the world who chose a side and lived and breathed that choice - - whether you fought with words or weapons, whether you stood for logic or for life - - this is for you.

None of us want to live like this. But if we have to, let’s at least face each other as fellow beings. For once, strip off the damn mask, flag, religion, righteousness.

At this point, it’s not about proving who’s right. It’s about surviving what’s left.

You may think I speak from power, and maybe I do. But lest you forget, we had nowhere else to go. Six million of us died like sheep, marched into ovens. Fight us if you must, but don’t think for a second that we don’t know the pain of being treated as “less than.”

We both want dignity. I want to make room. But you act as if we have options we don’t have. We have children. We have sacred missions and lines we can’t cross without losing who we are. And just like you, we have pride.

And you? You’ve already died a thousand ways. Bombed, boxed in, called animals, handed history’s trash pile and told to smile for the camera. You think we don’t see that? We do. Some of us do. And it haunts us.

We can’t just lay down and die to make you feel whole. If we could, maybe we would. But we can’t. Our life is not ours to lay down. We have promises to keep.

Today, we are stronger than you. That’s not me bragging. That’s just reality. Call it luck, history, or brutal necessity - - we have the upper hand. It’s a fact.

And we will use it to protect ourselves. Fiercely. Without apology.

But don’t think we take joy in it.

We fight until every hostage is returned. If we don’t, our bond falls apart.

Our strength doesn’t make us righteous. It just helps us survive.

And here’s what I want you to know most of all: your sacrifice, your defiance, while crazy and cult-like to us, is awe inspiring. We see how much you love your faith. We see what you’re willing to do. And in many ways, we’re humbled by it.

But neither of us can simply bow to the other. So either we find a way to work together, acknowledging the imbalance and doing our best to give up what we can - - or we don’t. And if it comes again to horror and death, we’re both complicit.

And though we may survive it - - maybe even win it - - we’ll never see your children as less than. We respect your personhood as our own.

You’re not defiant because you’re evil. You’re defiant because you’re humiliated - - unbearably, cosmically humiliated.

Your faith told you that you were chosen. That God was on your side. And then you lost.

You were bombed, filmed, pitied, diminished. You are seen as animals. And you know it.

Can there be a crueler fate than for Abraham to kneel in the dust, weaponless, mocked by satellites, mourning sons he never asked to sacrifice?

No one says it. We just call you sick. Primitive. We blow you up and say, “We had no choice.” And maybe we didn’t. But the part we don’t admit is that we’ve become gross in our own way. Comfortable. Gluttonous. Technocratic. Soulless.

We scroll while you pray.

We critique while you bleed.

😔

We don’t agree with you. But yes, we see how it must feel.

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(END FANTASY)

That’s the speech I wish someone would give. Maybe no one will ever say that out loud. But I needed to hear it, even if I had to say it myself.

And if that doesn’t change the story, maybe it changes the tone.

Empathy doesn’t mean agreement.

But it’s the only tool we have left to break this thing open.

I’m not here to rehash 80 years of context for someone who’s already chosen their side. You’re not stupid, and neither am I. More likely, we’re a stampeding claymation of little bodies frantically trampling each other in some mad God’s sick experiment, where we pop into the scene out of nothingness and fall into reactivity at the speed of gravity.

The least we can do is give each other a damn hug. This place can be brutal, can’t it?

Don’t worry. I’m not afraid. I’ve got you. Let’s be still a sec. Shh. Watch. Listen.

From where I sit: Islamism corrupted the cause. Settler Zionism poisoned the future. Hamas uses martyrdom like a marketing strategy. Likud responds with exhausted efficiency. It’s a mess.

Let’s not accuse each other of blindness just because we don’t parrot each other’s scripts.

We were born blind. These squishy orbs we call eyes read the history and reject the genocide claim. My brain stem rejects the colonialism frame, while my soul watches through a thick glass wall, screaming voicelessly to refuse to play.

Not victims and monsters, just millions manipulated by bad ideas and worse leaders.

Gazans aren’t evil. Most are pawns. Hamas isn’t justified, but they’re not demons - - they’re fanatics who believe they’re righteous. Same with some settlers.

If more Muslims had stood up to the extremists in their midst, if more Jews in Israel had stood up to the zealots in theirs, maybe we wouldn’t be here.

So that’s my fantasy. One of many. Different day, different speech, different side. It’s guaranteed to reveal my ignorance - - but it should reveal that I want more than the scripts we’ve all been handed.

If we can’t figure out the mechanics of what’s actually happening - - and maybe we can’t - - I want to at least try to understand each other’s pain.

Or am I way, way off? Rip into me if you must.

It may ruin our friendship. But if that’s all it takes, maybe it wasn’t much of a friendship to begin with.

Whatever happens, I’ll always see us as the human family of Earth. And I’ll never abandon you. Even if we’re just stampeding clay - - lurching, frightened dolls, stomping each other’s faces in some godless animation loop.

I know that part got to you.

It got to me too.

But I didn’t forget. And I’m not going anywhere.

I’ll keep reaching for you in the dust.

(“I Will Keep Reaching For You In the Dust” By Stella Stillwell)

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