There Is No “Them”: A Homecoming to Responsibility, Sovereignty, and the Whole

It’s easy to talk about “the system.”

The government. The schools. The health care. The laws. The banks. The tech giants. The policies. The prisons.

We speak of them like weather patterns. Something over there, moving beyond us. Something to be endured, reacted to, shouted at.

I’ve said these things. From time to time statements like these still slip in:

“They don’t care.”

“The system is broken.”

“What do you expect from the government?”

And lately, I’ve been confronted by something I can no longer unsee:

There is no “them.”

We are not outside the system. We are the system.

Not in some vague poetic sense—but in the very real, daily choices we make.

In how we treat each other.

In what we normalize.

In what we fund with our money, our time, our attention.

In what we let pass without question.

In what we teach our children by what we prioritize.

In the silences we hold and the truths we don't speak.

And I want to be clear: this isn’t about guilt. This isn’t about shame.

This isn’t about making ourselves—or anyone—wrong.

This is about remembering.

It’s about the ache of waking up in the middle of a dream that you didn’t know you were still dreaming.

It’s about looking at the scaffolding of our lives and realizing how much of it was built without our conscious consent.

For me, this reckoning hasn’t been clean or linear.

It’s been sobering, disorienting, and liberating.

I used to believe sovereignty meant standing apart—being untouchable, self-reliant, fierce.

But I’m learning that true sovereignty isn’t about separating from the world.

It’s about recognizing that I am of it.

I am part of this organism, this ecosystem, this entangled web of cause and effect.

I am not an outsider.

I am a participant.

And that means: I am responsible.

Not responsible in the sense of fault. But in the original sense of the word: able to respond.

I can respond to what is.

I can notice where I’ve abdicated my power, and call it back.

I can see where I’ve swallowed narratives uncritically, and choose to spit them out.

I can ask: What am I colluding with, even through my silence or my comfort?

And maybe most importantly:

I can forgive myself.

I can begin again.

And again.

And again.

This is not about becoming perfect.

It’s about becoming whole.

There is no outside.

There is no rescuer coming.

There is only I&I.

In all our flaws and beauty, confusion and clarity, despair and hope.

We have created this world—consciously and unconsciously.

And we can recreate it.

Not by waiting for the next election.

Not by blaming a shadowy "them."

But by remembering: the system is only as sick or as sacred as we are willing to make it.

So I’m not writing this from some pedestal.

I’m writing it on my knees, palms open, facing the mirror.

I’m asking myself:

Where am I still pretending I have no choice?

Where am I still hiding behind a false powerlessness?

Where have I mistaken critique for change?

And I offer this inquiry to you—not as a challenge, but as a remembering:

We are the fabric.

We are the ones weaving.

And we are the ones who can choose a new pattern.

So let’s stop looking for “them.”

Let’s turn inward, then outward, and begin again—from wholeness, not blame.

From responsibility, not guilt.

From sovereignty, not separation.

From love.