By Roshan Jayasinghe
I. A Simple Question with a Deeper Warning
What happens when one man’s obsession overrides collective reason?
This was the question, sparked by rising tariffs, economic games, and nationalistic illusions. But behind the question lived a much deeper fear: Are we, as a people, becoming blind to the reality we’re creating for ourselves?
Tariffs, once a fiscal policy tool, have become symbols of something much more dangerous: our willingness to accept deception when it flatters our fears.
And it is not just tariffs. It is not just economics. This is a pattern, repeated across nations, through leaders of every kind, and in the hearts of everyday people:
The abandonment of truth for the comfort of illusion.
The danger is not that one man manipulates the system, it is that the system reflects the human mind, which can construct tools for creation and destruction, often in the same breath.
And when the mind forgets its connection to the whole, to Earth, to one another, to soul, it becomes the very thing it fears: a force of collapse.
II. The Illusion of Control; The Reality of Cost
Let us name it clearly: a tariff is a tax on imported goods. In theory, it protects domestic industries by making foreign products more expensive. In practice, especially when used excessively or manipulatively, it becomes an invisible cost passed to consumers.
You don’t vote on it. You don’t see it listed on your receipt. But it’s there, in the rising cost of food, electronics, clothes, and machinery. It’s in the pressure on small businesses. It’s in the job losses no politician wants to talk about.
It is a silent tax, disguised as strength.
And yet, we support it. Why?
Because it feeds a story: that we are being protected. That someone is “fighting for us.” That the enemy is outside.
But here’s the truth:
The enemy is not foreign. It is internal.
It is our growing refusal to think critically.
It is our resistance to feeling deeply.
It is our seduction by simplicity in a complex world.
This is how human constructs turn against the human spirit. A tariff becomes more than a policy, it becomes a symbol of how we betray our own kind for the illusion of safety.
III. The Self-Deceiving Species
The human being is the only species capable of designing its own extinction, not through one single weapon, but through slow, compounding neglect.
We are a product of nature, born of stars, soil, sea, and wind. And yet, we behave like we are separate from it. We pollute the rivers we drink from. We burn the forests that clean our breath. We divide ourselves by borders and beliefs, as though the sky recognizes either.
And perhaps most dangerously, we deceive ourselves.
We lie to ourselves not because we are evil, but because truth demands responsibility. It demands change. It demands we see ourselves as the problem and the solution.
But every time we avoid that mirror, we deepen the threat.
We create systems that serve profit but not people. We elect leaders who play with power while silencing science. We glorify the strong while ignoring the wise.
And all the while, we forget: we are not separate from the system. We are the system.
IV. Nature Remembers; Will We?
Yet, there is a deeper intelligence always at work.
Nature corrects. Forests regrow. Rivers reroute. Ecosystems restore balance when given space.
And so it will be with us, not because we deserve salvation, but because we are nature’s by-product, and we will be held accountable by the very earth that formed us.
If we poison it, it will shake us off.
If we divide too deeply, we will weaken and forget how to survive.
If we continue to abandon human values for political theater, we will witness the slow unraveling of the sacred “I”, the part of us that feels, connects, remembers.
But there is still time to return.
Not to the past — but to presence.
Not to systems — but to soul.
Not to domination — but to dignity.
V. The Eternal Thread of Humanity
We are capable of correction, not because of policy, but because of memory.
We remember holding each other during storms.
We remember feeding strangers when famine struck.
We remember standing up, marching, mourning, rebuilding.
We remember compassion.
That is the eternal fabric of humanity, it does not live in policy documents or bank accounts. It lives in how we see each other, how we see ourselves, and what we choose to do next.
So what can we do?
• Question with clarity.
• Consume with conscience.
• Lead with love, not loyalty to illusion.
• Pause long enough to feel again.
A Final Reflection: The Choice is Ours
We are both the illness and the healer.
We created tariffs. We created war. We created debt, division, and distraction. But we also created medicine. We created music. We created art and agriculture and firelight and forgiveness.
The human “I” is the most powerful instrument on Earth, and it is time we tune it back to truth.
Because if we do not remember our humanity now, we will remember too late, in the silence after collapse.
Let us not be the species that invented its own demise.
Let us be the generation that remembered , not just what we are, but who we are.
We are nature.
We are system.
We are soul.
And we are responsible, to every child, every forest, every breath, and every moment still available to make it right.
About the Author
Roshan Jayasinghe is a humanist thinker and emerging writer based in California. With a background in administration and a deep passion for social equity, he explores the intersections of politics, identity, and compassion through a lens grounded in nature’s own self-correcting wisdom.
Roshan Jayasinghe
Rooted in the belief that humanity can realign with the natural order where balance, regeneration, and interdependence are inherent. Roshan’s reflections invite readers to pause, question, and reimagine the systems we live within. His writing seeks not to impose answers, but to spark thought and awaken a deeper awareness of our shared human journey. Roshan will be sharing weekly articles that gently challenge, inspire, and reconnect us to what matters most.
