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In much of Western culture, grief has been pushed into the shadows, sanitized, or distorted until most of us no longer know how to grieve at all.

Our ancestors understood grief as a natural, embodied, communal process—a rite of passage that demanded time, presence, and authenticity. Today, grief is often treated as a private embarrassment to “get over quickly,” or worse, as a spectacle to be performed.

Authentic grief is raw, inconvenient, and unpredictable. It moves in waves that can stretch across years, revisiting us in unexpected moments. Yet, in a society obsessed with productivity and image, this kind of grief is deeply unwelcome. We are given a few days off work after a death, but then the message is clear: return to “normal.”

Cry, but not too much. Speak, but not too long. Remember, but quietly.

This cultural illiteracy around grief leaves people isolated in their deepest sorrow. Those who mourn often feel pressure to suppress their emotions to avoid making others uncomfortable. Many retreat into silence, carrying unexpressed grief in their bodies where it festers as illness, depression, or numbness.

Paradoxically, while true grief is silenced, performative grief is amplified and celebrated. Social media feeds are filled with curated expressions of sadness, public declarations of solidarity, and viral hashtags tied to loss. While some of this may be sincere, much of it has become a ritual of performance: short-lived, superficial, and disconnected from the long, messy work of mourning.

This type of grief is dehumanizing because it reduces sorrow to a transaction: likes, shares, and fleeting validation. Even more troubling, performative grief is often weaponized to create division. Groups rally around selective tragedies while ignoring others, using grief not to connect but to polarize. Instead of fostering empathy, it reinforces tribalism.

At its core, grief is not meant to divide but to unite. When expressed authentically, it reminds us of our shared humanity—our love, our vulnerability, our mortality. True grief humbles us and calls us to compassion. It can dissolve walls between people and create profound solidarity, because everyone knows loss.

But we have forgotten this truth because we have forgotten how to grieve. Without rituals, elders, or spaces that can hold the depths of sorrow, we are left to stumble in the dark. We mistake spectacle for substance. We confuse attention with connection.

To heal this dysfunction, we need to relearn the lost literacy of grief. That means:

>> Creating spaces where grief can be expressed without time limits or judgment.

>> Honoring the body as part of mourning—allowing tears, movement, sound, and silence.

>> Recovering rituals that root grief in community rather than isolating it.

>> Listening without fixing, bearing witness to each other’s sorrow with presence rather than platitudes.

>> Recognizing grief as love, a testimony to the depth of our bonds rather than a weakness to be hidden.

Grief is not something to be performed for an audience, nor suppressed for convenience. It is a sacred human capacity that, when allowed, binds us together in our shared longing, memory, and love.

The great paradox of our time is that grief is everywhere, yet almost nowhere is it truly expressed. Until we recover the forgotten art of grieving, we will remain divided, fragmented, and estranged from our deepest selves.

But if we remember, if we dare to mourn together in truth, grief can once again become what it was always meant to be: a bridge back to our humanity and to each other.

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