On Not Losing Your Humanity in the Middle of the Shitstorm
Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist who survived the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, “Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: The last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”
Frankl wasn’t saying “look on the bright side” or “just get over it.” He was saying that even in the face of unimaginable horror there remains this razor-thin space of choice: Will we collapse into bitterness and numbness, or stubbornly insist on remaining fully human?
Decades later, we’re in the midst of our own storms: Queer and trans lives under threat, immigrants rounded up and sent to neo-concentration camps, a genocide unfolding in Gaza, political violence and fascism brewing in the U.S. and elsewhere, the climate catastrophe accelerating… and I could go on. In the midst of all of this, it can be so easy to shut down; numbness can feel like relief, but it’s also a kind of death.
Frankl insisted that meaning is not invented but discovered, often in how we respond as life unfolds. For me, that looks like appreciating my dog’s goofy grins and bouncy trots when he’s excited to go for a walk. It looks like choosing tenderness when the algorithms are pushing cruelty. It looks like laughing with people I love, without guilt, even while grieving.
From a Buddhist angle: Suffering is unavoidable, but it isn’t the whole story. From a queer angle: Humor, intimacy, and chosen kinship are acts of defiance. From Frankl’s angle: The shitstorm doesn’t get the last word, unless we let it.
To stay in touch with our humanity in this moment isn’t about grand heroics but about refusing to become mechanical. It’s about the ordinary, stubborn gestures of living life fully: Sharing food, checking in on a friend, keeping the flame of tenderness alive.
If you’re searching for your own meaning in this shitstorm, if you’re trying to figure out how to stay human when the world feels unbearable, I’d be honored to walk alongside you.