I Don’t Want Say Anything or Take Sides.

And it was supposed to be okay.

People seem to be speaking all the time now, about everything.

About the wars they only read from headlines.

About histories they haven’t seriously dived into.

About people they’ve never met.

There’s pressure in the air, subtle but constant.

Say something. Pick a side.

Make a statement, or be judged by the silence.

And here’s where it gets weird: that pressure doesn’t just come from governments or newsrooms.

It’s coming from friends. Colleagues. Social media.

Even from industries that have nothing to do with global politics.

Suddenly, not posting about a war can feel like a political crime. People are being asked to declare a position on conflicts they may barely grasp.

Not out of curiosity, but out of demand.

And that doesn’t sit right.

Truth is — there’s a lot that’s hard to say. Not because it’s unimportant. But because it’s complicated. Because it’s still being learned. And sometimes, not saying anything is the most honest thing anyone can do.

We Feel, Even When We Don’t Declare

There’s a basic truth that’s often lost: We’re all human.

People feel pain even when they choose not to express it publicly.

People feel heartbreak when they see innocent lives lost — on any side of a conflict.

This doesn’t stop just because someone refrains from posting, or chooses not to speak in absolutes.

Standing with one group doesn’t mean being blind to the suffering of another.

And even those with political positions still carry human empathy.

We’re not defined by slogans.

No one should be flattened into an identity based on one sentence, or one silence.

The Grey Exists. And Most of Us Live There

The world isn’t binary.

Most of life doesn’t fit neatly into black or white.

Most people live in the grey. Between understanding and confusion. Between feeling deeply and not knowing what to say.

That space deserves respect — not suspicion.

Online, however, we often forget that.

People are pushed to declare something before they’ve had time to process anything. And in that rush, we lose something important: the space for thinking, for listening, for becoming responsible before being reactive.

The Trap of Picking Sides

There’s a kind of trap inside the demand to “pick a side.”

At first, it seems like a fair ask: pick a side. Take a stand. But in reality, both sides often come preloaded — with expectations, labels, and consequences.

If someone refuses to pick a side, they risk being misunderstood.

If they do choose, they may be boxed in, reduced to a stereotype, and assumed to represent something they don’t actually embody.

And that’s the paradox:

When people are asked “which side are you on?”, often what’s really being asked is: Which version of judgment are you willing to accept?

Some people will even project cruelty onto that choice — assuming that if you stand with one people, you must be cold to another’s suffering.

But that’s not how human emotion works.

Not if we let people stay human.

This tension reminds me of what Hozier evokes in Take Me To Church — not just a critique of organised religion, but of any system that demands confession while already preparing the punishment.

There’s a Difference Between Caring and Performing

It’s easy to look like you care.

Harder to actually care enough to admit you don’t know yet. Harder still to resist the urge to turn grief into content.

Some people say silence equals violence. That sounds good in a tweet, but real life isn’t a slogan.

There’s a gap between being passive and being cautious. Between being neutral and being honest about your limits. And sometimes, staying quiet isn’t avoidance. It’s out of respect.

For the complexity.

For the people actually living it.

For the fact that most of us aren’t equipped to speak with the depth that the topic demands.

No One Owes the Internet a Performance

There’s a reason the line “I know that I know nothing” lasted thousands of years. Because it’s not just a philosophical idea — it’s a boundary.

A way of saying: I care, but I also know how far away I am from understanding everything.

And that’s not weak. That’s exactly what strength looks like in a world obsessed with performative certainty.

So maybe, instead of asking everyone to shout their opinions, we make space for people who are still thinking.

Still feeling.

Still choosing silence — not because they don’t care, but because they care too much to fake it.

Let the Grief Be Real, Without Performance

Watching people suffer is unbearable.

Seeing children killed, families displaced, lives destroyed — it should hurt. And it does hurt.

But posting grief doesn’t automatically heal the world.

And public statements don’t always come from clarity.

Sometimes they come from pressure. Or fear. Or habit.

Some people prefer to take action quietly — through donations, through education, through building things that matter.

And that counts.

Even if it’s invisible online.

Less Judgment. More Doing.

It’s easier to judge silence than to understand it.

It’s easier to assign a label than to sit in uncertainty.

But empathy isn’t about volume. It’s about depth.

What matters is not always what’s said, but what’s done.

If the pain is real, then maybe the response shouldn’t just be emotional — it should be structural.

Build something.

Help someone.

Use what you know, what you’re good at, and make something useful out of it.

That will last longer than outrage.

We don’t need more forced declarations.

We need space — for nuance, for processing, for being unsure.

We need to allow each other to live in the grey, and stop treating that space like a betrayal.

If someone chooses silence, it may be out of respect.

If someone hasn’t posted a position, maybe they’re still learning.

And if someone expresses care for one side, that doesn’t mean they’re indifferent to the other.

Let’s make room for that complexity.

Let’s let people stay human — before asking them to become symbols.

And let’s be honest:

We’re all still trying to figure things out.

And maybe that’s the most responsible place to begin.