I've been swinging through mania in the mornings and crashing into depression by 5pm recently. It starts with panic, rushing against time to process everything I can - listening to mutiple international news broadcasts, reading various newspapers and journals, youtubing trends in culture, all while trying to write and edit. Then it dissipates into fear of not making it because I'm too weak on my own, wishing desperately that someone else who is just as competent will carry on, then realizing there isn't enough of us. We are all so weak and broken. And then I want to blame everyone for being so distracted, unintelligent and vision-less. I want to believe we are capable of great things, but realistically think we need people to protect us from ourselves. Our own incompetence and delusions of grandeur. We want unity. We want acknowledgement that we've been wronged, and we want justice. But we won't make the compromises necessary to achieve those goals. We can't agree what "unity" means - a khalifah? Dominance of Shi'ism or Sunnism? Which interpretation of Shariah? We won't acknowledge that there are changes we need to make for ourselves in order for people to respect us as a competent, independent, critically thinking and open minded society. We are so focused on the esoteric details of religion as the answer. We can't even communicate with each other across generations, gender, culture and madhabs without fear of fitna or loss of traditions. We are so petty. And thus far from worthy of the respect want from the world.