The End of the World Is Taking Too Long — Let’s Build Something
Beneath despair lives imagination, and imagination loves company.
You’ve heard it before.
Corporations are greedy.
Governments are corrupt.
The planet is on fire.
Nobody cares.
It’s the chorus of our age.
Sometimes it feels like the only song anyone knows.
And yet…
have you noticed how repeating it doesn’t actually help?
It’s like pressing a bruise just to prove it’s still there.
Satisfying for a moment.
But you don’t heal that way.
Complaining is kind of magical, actually.
It’s the pressure valve on a boiling kettle.
The “you too?” that turns strangers into allies.
The nervous laugh in the face of impossible chaos.
We complain because we care.
Because being human is overwhelming.
Because we need little pockets of relief.
But here’s the secret:
inside every complaint is a blueprint —
a clue about what we actually long for,
if we’re willing to look.
“Nobody cares.”
Really? Nobody?
Or is it that people care so much
they feel paralyzed,
like ants staring up at a bonfire?
“Voting doesn’t matter.”
Whose voice does that really serve?
Not yours. Not mine.
It’s the lullaby of power itself:
Shhh. Stay home. We’ve got this.
“The planet is on fire.”
True.
But also —
sunsets still bleed pink.
Rivers still carry children’s laughter.
Life hasn’t given up on us yet.
Maybe we shouldn’t give up on it, either.
Judgment feels delicious for a moment —
like biting into spun sugar.
They’re monsters.
They’re idiots.
We see what others don’t.
But then the sweetness collapses.
You’re left sticky and tired,
with nothing new built.
Because here’s the secret:
the system isn’t broken.
It’s just doing what it was designed to do.
Corporations chasing profit.
Governments tangling with power.
Social media pulling at attention.
Not accidents.
Not conspiracies.
Just the natural outcome
of the rules they were built on.
And if we want something gentler,
more human,
we don’t need to keep shouting “broken!”
We need to dream up new blueprints.
So what if the next time you caught yourself mid-complaint,
you paused and asked:
“Okay. What is this bruise trying to tell me?”
Maybe it says you need to grieve.
Maybe it says you need rest.
Maybe it says you want to create something
nobody else has dared to imagine yet.
Complaining can be the doorway.
But the doorway isn’t the home.
Here’s a thought.
Instead of bonding over everything that’s awful,
what if we bonded over the worlds we want?
Not naïve utopias.
Tiny seeds.
Walkable streets.
Honest conversations.
Laughter that doesn’t need alcohol to be loud.
The world doesn’t just need less corruption.
It needs more daydreams.
More experiments.
More people who believe healing is possible —
starting in their own nervous system.
Because despair is contagious.
But so is wonder.
Needroot (n.)
The hidden longing at the base of a complaint, waiting to be watered.
“Behind his complaint about work was a needroot for recognition.”
Tendshift (n.)
The subtle movement from venting into self-nurturing.
“His tendshift was invisible to others, but it changed everything.”
Wonderforge (n.)
The inner space where care for yourself hardens into tools for creation.
“She stepped into her wonderforge and began sketching ideas.”
I think that wonderforge should also be used as a verb! Something like creating something new that comes from wonder and makes people wonder! :)