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It may be enough that we do not turn away from what stands before us, even when it exceeds what we believe we can endure. What lies ahead is not lessened by our hesitation. If there is any measure left to us, it is in seeing what is there without withdrawing from it. Let it not pass unnoticed. In facing what we fear, something in us has already given way, though we continue as if it had not. Still, something must hold, even where we cannot name it.
Let it not be said that we did not see what we became. No tyranny stands apart from those who allow it to stand. What prevails does so not by force alone, but through what remains unexamined in each of us. If there is anything to be undone, it does not begin elsewhere. It begins in the refusal to see what we are when we turn away. If there is mercy, it is not in judgment, but in the possibility that one might still face what has been done without turning from it.
We do not stand outside this. What we condemn is not separate from us. If we fail, it is not only through action, but through what we leave unexamined. Indifference does not remain contained. It spreads, quietly, until nothing resists it. What we become in that condition is not imposed. It is allowed. And in that allowance, something essential gives way.
Before it is too late, there is only this: to see what is there, within and without, without division. Not in parts, not in sequence, but all at once. To see it without turning it into something else. In that seeing, there is no method, no progression, no assurance. Only the fact of it. And where that fact is seen without distortion, something acts, not as decision, but as the ending of what cannot continue once it is fully seen.
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Ricardo F. Morín, recast from 2014, April 25, 2026, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.
Observations On Perception 