School fires. Public demonstrations. A growing sense of unrest that is often described in different ways depending on who is speaking. To some, these are signs of discipline breaking down. To others, they are signs of frustration finally finding a voice. To others still, they are simply chaos—things that should not be happening at all. But very little of the conversation seems to pause on a quieter question: what if these are not separate incidents at all? What if they are different expressions of the same underlying tension—one that we rarely name directly? Because there is an assumption that sits beneath much of how we interpret society: That what we survived is what should be survived. And what we endured is what should be endured. People often treat their own endurance of hardship as proof that hardship is normal, necessary, or fair. Once that shift happens, survival stops being just experience and becomes instruction: a silent template for how life should be lived. And in Kenya, t...
School fires. Public demonstrations. A growing sense of unrest that is often described in different ways depending on who is speaking. To some, these are signs of discipline breaking down. To others, they are signs of frustration finally finding a voice. To others still, they are simply chaos—things that should not be happening at all. But very little of the conversation seems to pause on a quieter question: what if these are not separate incidents at all? What if they are different expressions of the same underlying tension—one that we rarely name directly? Because there is an assumption that sits beneath much of how we interpret society: That what we survived is what should be survived. And what we endured is what should be endured. People often treat their own endurance of hardship as proof that hardship is normal, necessary, or fair. Once that shift happens, survival stops being just experience and becomes instruction: a silent template for how life should be lived. And in Kenya, t...