What else can we do with failure, this big, this painful, this deep, after all?

Here’s what I think. We have to go now from “we warn, they don’t listen, they insult us, we warn,” and the vicious cycle only gets worse, to sort of leading by example, which means being completely, devastatingly open about what we did, which was fail. Not because we weren’t loud enough or strident enough, but just because power is what power is, which is a thing that never wants change. And maybe in that admission, there’s another sort of power, a truer kind, which is the sort that opens people’s minds again. To the fatal bargain between human nature and power, which so often leads to self-destruction — but I’m coming to that in a moment.

I don’t know. What I do know is that that old way, which dominated the last decade or so, at least for us noble and thoughtful souls, is now at an end. Now, instead of warning, our role is many things beyond that. To observe. To chronicle, for the next generation and civilization. To connect with one another, instead of trying to just warn them. To nurture our own souls, too, which have been badly, maybe even at times, mortally, wounded, by fighting this unwinnable battle.

How I Failed at What Matters Most, And What it Taught Me by umair haque, Eudaimonia and Co, May 5, 2024