i don't think it is foolish to take the world's problems to heart.
i would rather be thin-skinned, vulnerable, chafing
with each instance of inequality and injustice,
than blind, numb, bare but unfeeling.
lack of empathy is its own set of chains.
better to be born fresh into each tragedy, marred again
by each new illness, than to pretend that insensibility
is health, that ignorance is substance.