Elif Shafak’s image of shattered glass lingers because it names something we often avoid: fragility is not a failure, but a condition that requires care (A polycrisis has shattered our world this year. But with care, we can put it back together, 31 December).
The deeper danger she identifies is not crisis itself, but numbness. We have built systems that reward speed, certainty and outrage, and then wonder why compassion struggles to survive inside them. This is evident not only in geopolitics and media, but in our institutions, workplaces and public services.
Under sustained pressure, systems harden and language sharpens. People become problems to be managed. Care is rarely lost through malice; more often it is squeezed out.
If everything is transactional, nothing is relational. Repair of trust, democracy or culture begins by reintroducing space for doubt, for empathy and for reflection.
Glass can be remelted, but relentless heat will always burn what it touches.
Simon Spiller
Budleigh Salterton, Devon
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