Too fragile

I wonder about our extreme swing to the side of fragility. Our overcompensation for trauma. Wapping kids in swaths of protection. No trees to climb. No bones to break.

Acknowledgement of trauma, and of conditions like Aspergers, is a great start to healing humanity. Yet when we mollycoddle, we do not heal, we keep the trauma and disorders alive and fed. 

Resilience, one of those overused words, is essential to all life. The ability to push through difficulty and emerge better for it. This is how we grow, even at the biological level. (Muscles grow through stress.)

To have trauma define us is to say yes to the perpetual victim. Trauma and disability, real as they are, can be tools for our evolution and growth, not weapons that stunt us.

This is the next step of humanities education. How to acknowledge trauma, heal it and become better for it.

Photo taken December 28th 2022