The Frame We’re Taught to Admire

If you want, you can play the song I created on Suno as background while you read. It was written for this piece.

There’s a painting I keep thinking about.

It hangs in places designed to make us feel safe, such as hotels, galleries, and living rooms with good lighting and better intentions.

People pause to admire the balance, the colors, and the craftsmanship.

They discuss the frame. Yet, they overlook what's within the paint.

Do they care?

Are they aware?

We've been conditioned to display someone's pain as decoration. We are subtly, yet effectively, taught to view the world this way.

To appreciate the presentation.

To trust the framing.

To believe that if something truly mattered, it would be impossible to overlook.

I used to work with numbers that represented people.

A headline would pass by: dozens of children killed overnight.
The number would be clean, rounded, and easy to repeat.

In a world increasingly driven by data and statistics, we often find ourselves focusing on numbers rather than names, and metrics

But numbers don’t carry shoes left by the door.
They don’t carry unfinished homework.
They don’t carry the sound of a name being called one last time.

Somewhere along the way, we learned to accept this translation.
Life → statistic.
Child → collateral.
War → update.

An additional and significant observation was made: the translation of lives does not uniformly receive the same degree of care and attention. Certain narratives are preserved and conveyed with meticulous detail and empathy.

We don’t say it out loud, but we live it every day.

Some children receive full sentences.
Others get footnotes.

Some deaths interrupt programming.
Others scroll quietly beneath the weather.

Skin colour, Continent, accent, or Flag.
These details shouldn’t matter, but they shape how long we look, how deeply we feel, how quickly we move on.

This isn’t about guilt.
It’s about noticing the frame we’ve inherited.

I’m not opposed to having a structured approach to things. In fact, I appreciate the value of organization and the benefits of that.
I’m against the blindfold that comes with them.

The one that tells us our discomfort is just anxiety.
That our unease is personal, chemical, something to manage, not a response to reality.

But sometimes discomfort is intelligence.
Sometimes it’s empathy refusing to be silent.

I lived for years in places where the contrast between privilege and survival wasn’t hidden behind design. Where the painting and the paint were impossible to separate.

That’s where I learned this:
Many people possess compassion; they've simply mastered the art of self-restraint. And training can be undone.

My intention in writing is neither to provoke shock nor to induce feelings of depression.
I write to adjust the angle of the frame.

Because many of us already feel that something doesn’t add up.
That the world we’re shown doesn’t quite match the one we sense.

Experiencing such feelings does not indicate a deficiency; rather, it signifies an acute understanding. In a society characterized by pervasive distractions, maintaining focus serves as a subtle yet powerful act of defiance.

This newsletter is a space for people who want to look carefully, without despair, without denial. If that sounds like you, you’re already in the right place.

I'm still here, and still with you.

I published my essay on What has transformed? And what exists now that could not have existed before this loss created space for it?

Read it here:

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