You have believed in monsters. You were taught they were born that way—born cruel, born callous, born to harm. But no one enters this world an asshole. That title is earned, piece by painful piece, carved by what they’ve been through and what they’ve been denied. Cruelty is not a personality—it’s a survival tactic. If someone grew up learning the world cannot be trusted, then trust becomes dangerous. And so they adapt. Aggression becomes armor. Narcissism becomes a life raft. This is not forgiveness. This is clarity.
Sitting with your emotions is not an act of indulgence. It is an act of survival. The world teaches people to either suppress or obsess over their feelings, to label them as problems in need of immediate solutions. Sadness is met with distraction, anxiety with positive affirmations, discomfort with a flurry of self-help strategies. But there is a difference between managing emotions and processing them. One is about control. The other is about trust.
The river flows, carrying the weight of every stone it has touched. Each memory, sharp or smooth, shapes its path, carving identity into the current. Yet as the river meets the ocean, those stones dissolve, their weight lifted, their edges softened. The ocean does not grieve the loss of a single drop; it expands, vast and unburdened, teaching us that release is not forgetting but freedom. Life is a delicate balance of holding on to what shapes us and letting go of what no longer serves us. What will you carry forward, and what will you release into the infinite?
