Choosing Quiet in a World That Wants You Angry

Since Covid, the world outside my door has felt like a different place. Louder. Angrier. More certain of itself in ways that leave little room for those of us who are simply trying to stay kind. People ask me sometimes, gently or not so gently, why I’m not more fired up. And I’ll admit, I’ve wondered myself whether that makes me passive. Disengaged. Somehow less.

But here’s what I keep coming back to. The only person who goes to sleep with me at night and wakes up with me in the morning is me. And Molly, obviously, who has opinions about everything but keeps them largely to herself.

So the questions I sit with aren’t about who’s winning or losing out there. They’re quieter than that. Am I grounded today? Is there kindness moving through me? Am I passing something worth passing on?

That’s my politics. That’s my activism. And I make no apology for it.

Walking into a room these days can feel like entering a battlefield where everyone has already chosen their side and is quietly waiting to find out which one you’re on. The dinner table has become a declaration. The wrong comment, or no comment at all, can apparently say everything about you.

I’ve developed my own way of moving through these moments. I think of it as arriving with a kind of inner stillness that doesn’t need to plant a flag. I’m genuinely interested in people — all people — and curiosity, I’ve found, is the most disarming thing you can bring into a charged room. Ask someone about themselves and they’ll rarely stop to interrogate you.

I’m not indifferent. I’m not asleep. I simply refuse to let someone else’s certainty disturb the thing I’ve spent years cultivating. My peace isn’t passive. It’s the most radical thing I own.

And if that makes me an outlier at the dinner table, well — I’ve always been more comfortable slightly outside the frame anyway. It’s a very good place from which to observe, and occasionally, to gently offer something that shifts the temperature in the room without anyone quite knowing how it happened.

That, as it turns out, is what I do.

— B