My Name Is Iden | At the speed of suffering
- Published: December 1, 2025
I go for a lot of walks now. I go mostly in the morning. I like the morning time. It’s quiet, the whole day is open before me and so much still feels possible to me in the morning.
This morning found me sitting on a railing surrounded by nature. The railing belonged to a low bridge straddling an area of wetland. Trees rose up all around me, shadowy and moss-covered. The low sun was just peeking beneath their canopy and sparkling across the spider webs. A cardinal couple flirted with each other across the branches of a half-submerged log. Deer grazed on the wooded hill behind me, and all around was the chirping of insects, and the croaking of frogs, and steady running water.
I sat for a good while observing it all, trying to appreciate the complex commerce of nature. It all seemed so peaceful and so purposeful. I wish I could have stayed. I wish I could have joined in that existence more, but I am ever conscious of my status in places like that. I was just a visitor. I am a human and I have a different world.
I stood and returned to my walking. Each step brought me closer to the human world of genocide, poverty, violence, misogyny, racism, homophobia and transphobia that, for a moment, I had almost forgotten. I kept walking, trading mossy trees and sparkling webs for a parking lot and an abandoned building.
I wanted it to make sense. Why are we like this? Why is the human world so different from the peaceful world I had just left? I reminded myself that there is violence and fear in that world, too. It is easy to forget that cardinals are predators, that fallen trees are corpses and that spider webs are killing fields. There is always, beneath all the beauty and joy of the life around us, the pain and ugliness of death. Even in that magic place.
That thought felt true to me and I understood it. It also felt like half an answer, and half-answers have never satisfied me. I was stopped now, looking at myself in the dirty glass of a forgotten entry way, my reflection interrupted halfway up by a spray-painted heart and the word “Gaza.” Somewhere behind me a garbage truck released its air brake.
Maybe that is how it has to be in the woods. Maybe that balance of living and dying, preying until you yourself become prey, is just the commerce of nature, and perhaps that commerce is governed by some inescapably constant equation. Life Equals Death Times The Speed of Suffering Squared. I took a picture of my reflection in the dirty glass and moved on.
The sun was higher now and the air warmer. I walked through neighborhoods of cute little houses. I walked past shops and a school. I watched a man unload a truck and a teacher herd a class of children across a street. All around me was the commerce of humanity. I sat on a bench and watched it all. The whole scene was dreamlike and idyllic.
For a moment, I nearly forgot that, in another town, bombs are falling. I nearly forgot that, in another town, masked men are snatching apart families. I nearly forgot that one in four women will be sexually assaulted. I nearly forgot that all of this postcard tranquility that surrounded me was built on stolen land, by stolen labor, and maintained by a global network of violence and exploitation.
I was nearing home and struggling more than ever to find the other half of the answer to my question. I needed this to make sense because I could not understand, and my heart was breaking. Is this what it is to be human? Are we so high atop the food chain that all that remains to keep the balance is to prey upon each other? Is our violence and hate the final link that closes the system? Is the cruelty of humanity simply an inescapable constant of life, or can we change how we conduct our business in the world?
When I woke this morning I would have told you “yes.” Yes, humanity can do better. Yes, we can grow beyond our greed. Yes, we can turn away from fear and hate. Yes we can love each other and care for one another. Yes, we can break free from this repeating cycle of tragedy. That all seemed so possible — but then again, everything seems possible in the quiet of the morning. Now, as I write this, it is evening time for me. I’ve walked many places, observed many scenes and peered beneath many things. I’ve asked a lot of questions and spent a lot of time trying to answer them. The sun is setting where I am now. The air is cooling and I’m not so hopeful as I was when I woke.
*The author is an artist and writer. She lives in Yellow Springs with her wife and three children. You can follow her work at http://www.mynameisiden.com.
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