humanity
For better or for worse, relationships reveal the core of the human condition.
What Floats When No One Carries You
Some pain never shows itself. It doesn’t bleed. It doesn’t bruise the skin. It simply lives inside you, quietly—like something floating beneath the surface of water. Present, steady, unseen. I think I am something like that. Floating. Not because I’m light—but because sinking would mean stopping. The house was silent when I woke up that morning. Not peaceful silence. The kind that feels unfinished. My mother’s room door was closed. My father had already left for work. On the table sat a cup of tea, cold and untouched, probably left there from the night before. I had to go to school. That part of the day always felt heavier than it should have. My foot still hurt. The doctor had called it a “minor injury,” the kind that heals on its own. People love the word minor. It makes pain sound optional. Like something you can simply ignore if you try hard enough. But pain doesn’t work that way when you have to walk. “Just take the bus,” they said. Buses cost money. And money isn’t always something you have when you need it. So I walked. The air was sharp with cold. Each step sent a reminder up my leg that I wasn’t okay, even if I looked like I was. I tried not to limp. People notice weakness more than they notice pain. Cars passed. People passed. Faces buried in phones, conversations, laughter. No one asked if I was alright. And that’s the rule of the world, I think—you’re invisible until you fall. Halfway there, I stopped near a small frozen pond. The surface was quiet, almost glass-like. Beneath it, something moved slowly. A jellyfish drifted just below the ice, its soft colors muted by the water. It wasn’t swimming. It wasn’t sinking. It was simply… floating. I stood there longer than I meant to. Watching it felt strangely familiar. It moved because the water moved it. No direction of its own. No resistance. No struggle anyone could see. I thought, Maybe this is what surviving looks like when no one carries you. School was loud, but I felt distant from it. Sitting hurt. Standing hurt. Thinking hurt. My body and mind seemed to argue with each other all day. The teacher asked a question I knew the answer to. I didn’t raise my hand. Silence had become easier than speaking. When no one truly listens, words feel like wasted effort. During lunch, everyone gathered in groups. I sat near the window, staring out toward the pond again, the way light reflected off its surface. I remembered when I was younger—when my mother used to walk me to school, holding my hand tightly like she was afraid the world might take me away. Back then, the road felt shorter. Back then, pain didn’t follow me everywhere. Back then, I didn’t feel like I had to prove I deserved to exist. Time changes everything. Except the expectations. On the way home, snow began to fall. My foot had gone numb, but I kept walking. Stopping felt dangerous. Like if I paused too long, I might not start again. The sky was heavy and gray. Each breath came out like a small cloud. I thought about how strange it was that pain could feel so lonely even when you’re surrounded by people. When I reached home, the silence greeted me again. I dropped my bag and sat on the floor. That’s when the tears came—not suddenly, not dramatically. Just quietly. Like they had been waiting all day for permission. I didn’t try to stop them. People think strength is loud. They think it looks like confidence, or bravery, or winning. But sometimes strength is just continuing. Continuing to walk. Continuing to show up. Continuing to float. No one sees how heavy that can be. The next morning, my foot still hurt. But something inside me had shifted. I realized I wasn’t weak for struggling. I wasn’t broken because things were hard. I had been surviving without support, without rest, without being asked the simplest question: Are you okay? And I was still here. That mattered. Later that day, someone finally noticed. “You look tired,” they said. Not accusing. Just observant. For once, I didn’t smile automatically. “I am,” I said. The world didn’t collapse. They didn’t walk away. They just nodded—and listened. It wasn’t a solution. It didn’t fix my pain or my situation. But it reminded me of something important: Being seen doesn’t require being loud. It requires being honest—with the right people. I still smile sometimes. But now, I let it come naturally. I let it leave when it needs to. I don’t force strength anymore. I don’t pretend pain doesn’t exist just to make others comfortable. I’m learning that floating isn’t failure. Sometimes, floating is survival. And maybe that’s enough—for now.
By Inayat khan2 days ago in Humans
Time to change your life.. Top Story - January 2026. Content Warning.
Is it even possible for you to change your life? A lot of people, more than there should be, are unhappy with their lives. But what are they doing about it? Usually nothing. People talk about how shitty their lives are and want change, but are they not taking the actions to change?
By Jen Phillips3 days ago in Humans
Why the First Philosophers Still Matter.
When we think of philosophy, we usually think of its original founders as three great figures: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle - in that exact order. They were indeed major players, and without them the game wouldn’t be the same. Their combined influence shaped Western culture and determined much of the direction philosophy would take.
By Eva Smitte3 days ago in Humans
Empty Yet Full: The Spiritual Paradox at the End of Life
There is a paradox at the heart of every authentic spiritual path, a paradox that becomes clearest at the end of life: a life well‑lived should be empty and yet full. Empty of what was never truly ours, full of what can never be taken. Empty of illusion, full of truth. Empty of grasping, full of grace. Empty of ego, full of soul. This paradox is not a contradiction but a revelation. It is the culmination of the human journey, the moment when the soul recognizes what mattered and what never did. It is the moment when the Divine whispers through the quiet spaces of a life that has been lived with intention, surrender, and love.
By Julie O'Hara - Author, Poet and Spiritual Warrior3 days ago in Humans
Emotion Is Not a Flaw of the Human Experience: It Is One of Its Greatest Gifts
Emotion Is Not a Flaw of the Human Experience: It Is One of Its Greatest Gifts For centuries, human beings have wrestled with their own emotional lives. We have tried to master them, suppress them, transcend them, or explain them away. Entire philosophies have been built on the suspicion that emotion is a weakness, a distortion, or a threat to reason. Yet the deeper we look—into psychology, spirituality, neuroscience, and the lived experience of the soul—the clearer it becomes that emotion is not a flaw of the human experience. It is one of its greatest gifts. Emotion is the language of the heart, the compass of the soul, the bridge between the seen and the unseen. It is the way the Divine moves through the human form. To feel deeply is not a sign of fragility but of aliveness. It is the evidence that we are connected, responsive, and capable of love.
By Julie O'Hara - Author, Poet and Spiritual Warrior3 days ago in Humans
I Know God’s Plans Are Better Than Mine
There is a moment in every sincere spiritual life when the heart finally whispers what the mind has resisted for years: I know God’s plans are better than mine. It is not a statement of defeat, nor a gesture of passivity, nor a relinquishing of responsibility. It is the quiet recognition that the human view is partial, limited, and shaped by fear and desire, while the Divine view is whole, timeless, and rooted in love. This recognition does not arrive all at once. It unfolds slowly, through experience, through loss, through unexpected blessings, through the unraveling of our own illusions, and through the gradual awakening of trust. It is a truth learned not by theory but by living. And once it settles into the soul, it becomes the foundation of a different way of being—one marked by surrender, humility, and a deeper peace than the ego could ever manufacture.
By Julie O'Hara - Author, Poet and Spiritual Warrior3 days ago in Humans
Healing Is Not an Event: The Pilgrimage of the Soul and the Slow Unfolding of Truth
Healing is often imagined as a moment, a breakthrough, a sudden shift in which everything that once hurt is resolved and everything that once confused becomes clear. But anyone who has walked the inner path long enough knows that healing rarely arrives as a single revelation. It is not an event. It is not a destination. It is not a point on the map where the soul finally arrives and declares itself complete. Healing is part of the journey itself. It is a pilgrimage. It is the soul’s long work, the slow unfolding of truth across the landscape of a lifetime, and often across many lifetimes. It is the gradual softening of what has been hardened, the gentle illumination of what has been hidden, and the patient integration of what has been fragmented.
By Julie O'Hara - Author, Poet and Spiritual Warrior3 days ago in Humans
I Love You to the Moon and Back
I recall those Valentine’s Days when I was single — there were many — where I felt that sting of loneliness and a sense of FOMO. During those years, I believed being adored by a man would help me validate my worth, without the comprehension that I needed to honour myself too.
By Chantal Christie Weiss3 days ago in Humans
Learning as Love and the Unlearning of Human Ways
To say that learning is a form of love is to make a profound claim about the nature of the soul, the nature of truth, and the nature of the Divine. It suggests that learning is not merely the accumulation of information or the refinement of intellect, but an act of devotion, an opening of the heart, a willingness to be changed. It implies that the soul learns not to become more knowledgeable in the worldly sense, but to become more aligned with the Divine. And it suggests that the greatest obstacle to this alignment is not ignorance but the deeply ingrained habits, assumptions, and defenses that constitute what we call “human ways.” To embrace divinity, we must unlearn these ways. We must release the patterns that keep us bound to fear, separation, and illusion. We must allow ourselves to be taught by something greater than the mind. Learning becomes love when it becomes surrender.
By Julie O'Hara - Author, Poet and Spiritual Warrior3 days ago in Humans
Huston, Australia has 99 problems.. Content Warning.
Huston! We have a problem. It's a big problem. It's not one I can sit still observing anymore. Honestly, I have adrenaline writing this as I feel I am going to be firstly, trying hard not to upset any one person. I am here attempting to do the unthinkable. I am not a hero. I am just a relentless force that is attempting to bring down too many walls so people can start seeing the argument clearly, of course after the dust has settled. I am not here to silence any group. I am here to bring a discussion and unite groups back together. I have always been a fence sitter, up until lately I can see the fence but I am no longer sitting on it.
By Louise Spathonis3 days ago in Humans
The Veil of Nothingness: Reality, Meaning, and the Hidden Architecture of Existence
The phrase “veil of nothingness” carries a strange and paradoxical power. It evokes both emptiness and concealment, both the absence of substance and the presence of a barrier. It suggests that something essential is hidden not behind a wall or a curtain, but behind a kind of metaphysical emptiness—a void that obscures the deeper nature of reality. Throughout history, mystics, philosophers, theologians, and psychologists have wrestled with this idea in different forms. Whether described as maya in Hindu philosophy, sunyata in Buddhism, the cloud of unknowing in Christian mysticism, or das Nichts in existential philosophy, the veil of nothingness has served as a metaphor for the limits of human perception and the mysterious ground from which meaning arises.
By Julie O'Hara - Author, Poet and Spiritual Warrior3 days ago in Humans
