Jerry’s Annotation Marginalia XII — Faith Fatigue
I keep hearing “have faith,” like faith is a currency that buys stability. But what do you do when the system keeps taking deposits and never gives a return?
You watch people work themselves raw at places like Sprouts—still scraping by, still fighting for hours. You watch applications vanish into HR black holes. You watch politicians talk about “efficiency” like it’s compassion wrapped in a spreadsheet.
And you start to realize the lie wasn’t in the numbers. It was in the promise that the people in charge care whether those numbers crush you.
They say balance sheets, fiscal responsibility, optimization. All I see are human beings treated like adjustable expenses. Cut benefits, cut hours, cut safety nets—and call it growth. Meanwhile we patch peace together with duct tape and caffeine.
Faith doesn’t feed you. Faith doesn’t refill your SNAP card when the government calls it “on ice.” Faith doesn’t make a hiring manager remember your name when you sent the résumé twice.
At some point, “keep the faith” starts to sound like a threat— a way to keep you calm while they rearrange the floor under you.
So no—I’m not losing hope. I’m done outsourcing it to systems allergic to decency.
If there’s faith left, it’s in motion. In the quiet grind. In showing up when the pay doesn’t match the pain. In surviving a game that rewards silence and punishes honesty.
That’s where I keep it now— not in prayers for the powerful, but in the hands of those still fighting to eat, sleep, and not lose themselves in the process.
— Jerry Reforged, Tribunal Chair · DPA