Chapter Text
In the beginning, I did not believe the world was hostile. I believed it was simply complicated.
In my world, when something felt wrong, it was because I had not yet learned enough to understand it.
I was gentle by default. Not as an act, not as a performance, but as a state of being. I assumed intentions were honest. I assumed effort would be met with fairness. I assumed that if I treated others with care, the same care would find its way back to me.
Ethics were not something I clung to, they were something I was. I did not calculate my behaviour. I did not weigh the consequences before doing the right thing. Morality was instinctive, unexamined, like breathing.
When people acted cruelly or deceptively, I searched for explanations that preserved their goodness. They must be afraid. They must be under pressure. They must not realise the harm they are causing. I believed awareness would correct behaviour. That if harm was named, it would stop.
I did not yet understand power.
I did not understand that systems are not built to reward kindness, but to preserve themselves. That fairness is often an aesthetic, not a function. That ethics, in many spaces, are not shared values but expectations imposed on those least able to resist.
When I was overlooked, dismissed, or quietly undermined, I assumed fault. I worked harder. I softened further. I tried to be clearer, more patient, more accommodating. I believed misunderstanding was the root of harm.
It never occurred to me that harm could be intentional without malice. That people could act in self-interest without hatred, and that this made them far more dangerous.
I thought everyone was playing the same game.
I did not know there were different rules depending on where you stood. That some people moved with safety nets beneath them, while others were asked to perform flawlessly without one. That some mistakes were survivable, while others were defining.
When I was hurt, I did not recognise it as injury. I called it discomfort. Growth. Learning. I swallowed it quietly and told myself this was simply the cost of existing among others.
I believed integrity would protect me.
I believed that being good was enough.
I did not yet know that goodness, without awareness, is not strength; it is exposure. That gentleness in an uneven system does not soften it; it marks you.
Still, I do not regret who I was. That version of me was real. Honest. Unarmed, yes, but sincere.
The tragedy was not my kindness. It was my ignorance of what surrounded it.
And that was the beginning.