Relationships

The ripple effect

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

The Ripple Effect” argues that every small act, attitude, and decision sends out waves into other people’s lives and into society, shaping far more than we see on the surface. In simple terms, the post says that how you speak, how you love, and how you ignore or care for others all spread outward like ripples in a pond, eventually returning to you in the kind of world you end up living in. The heart of the message is moral and existential: you cannot control the whole ocean, but you are responsible for the ripples your own stone creates, and over time those ripples help build either a more compassionate world or a more wounded one.

The stone you throw is smaller than your hand. .
Yet circles run for miles beneath the skin. .
A whisper leaves your mouth like drifting sand. .
It builds a dune of shame or grace within. .
You think your anger dies when doors are slammed. .
But echoes bloom in children down the hall. .
A single careless phrase, “You’re weak, you’re damned.” .
Becomes the script a soul reads as it falls. .
The night you turned away from someone’s tears. .
Seemed trivial, a tired, forgetful hour. .
Yet loneliness grew thick across their years. .
And spread like ivy through their trust in power. .
The kindness you once offered half‑awake. .
A seat, a smile, a patient listening ear. .
Became the unseen bridge someone could take. .
To walk back from the ledge of secret fear. .
We live as if our moments stay in place. .
But time is water, nothing stays contained. .
Each choice dissolves, then gathers into space. .
As weather in another person’s brain. .
You scroll and judge, you mock behind a screen. .
The ripples cross a fragile, breaking heart. .
Or you send one true message, calm and clean. .
That says, “You still belong, you get a start.” .
A parent hides their grief behind a joke. .
The child learns early not to show their pain. .
The pattern travels outward, spoke by spoke. .
Till no one knows why love feels laced with shame. .
But also, when a wounded one forgives. .
The ancient tide of cruelty is shocked. .
A different kind of current starts to live. .
A door long rusted through is gently knocked. .
We are not gods who rule the storm and sea. .
We cannot mend the world with one grand act. .
But every quiet “yes” to empathy. .
Rewrites the terms of one inherited pact. .
The heart you soften softens someone else. .
They go back home and speak with gentler eyes. .
Their mercy grazes wounds you’ve never felt. .
And lifts a stranger’s head toward different skies. .
The pain you choose to finally feel and name. .
No longer leaks in ways you can’t control. .
You break the chain that always shifted blame. .
And send a cleaner river through your soul. .
So when you feel invisible and small. .
Remember how the circles leave the stone. .
Your life is not a closed and private wall. .
Your smallest love is shaping worlds unknown. .
Stand in the pond and own the waves you make. .
Let every breath be honest, fierce, and kind. .
For every tender risk you dare to take. .
Becomes the tide that heals the human mind. .

…

DCG

The exoneration of regret 

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Poem: The Exoneration of Regret

  1. I stare into the wreckage of my then,
  2. The echoes answer softly, “Here we met.”
  3. I catalog the harm I did back when,
  4. Each memory stamped with one dark word: “Regret.”
  5. I thought that flogging thought would make me clean,
  6. As if self‑hate could pay another’s debt.
  7. I wore my shame like armor, hard and mean,
  8. Yet every plate was forged from unpaid fret.
  9. I knelt before the altar of “Too late,”
  10. And prayed to be condemned and not forget.
  11. I called it holy never to feel great,
  12. As if joy proved I’d learned nothing from the upset.
  13. But sorrow, when it listens, learns to bend,
  14. It does not need a noose around its neck.
  15. The point is not to never find an end,
  16. But let remorse turn forward, not back‑check.
  17. I hear a Voice that does not flinch at crime,
  18. It names the wound and will not soft‑correct.
  19. Yet after truth has finished taking time,
  20. It opens up a road I can’t expect.
  21. “You cannot change the script of what you did,”
  22. It says, “but you can change what follows yet.”
  23. “You are not only what your worst self hid,
  24. You are the one who now can make a new beget.”
  25. So I release the courtroom in my head,
  26. Where I was judge, accused, and harsh cadet.
  27. I trade the endless trial for bread instead,
  28. And feed the part of me I used to vet.
  29. I visit those I’ve harmed with open eyes,
  30. Not asking them to cancel every debt.
  31. I give them space to answer or revise,
  32. While owning what I broke without reset.
  33. In learning how to grieve without self‑hate,
  34. I learn that punishment is not the same as sweat.
  35. The work is walking different through the gate,
  36. Not kneeling in the ashes just to fret.
  37. So let the gavel fall on shame’s old throne,
  38. Let mercy write the terms of my new bet.
  39. I carry what I’ve done, but not alone,
  40. For Love has signed The Exoneration of Regret.

…

DCG

The want to aspire 

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Dane learned early what silence meant inside a crowded room,
His father’s eyes were weathered stone, his mother’s voice a sigh.
He built a fortress out of fear, a childhood half in bloom,


Where questions fell like broken glass, and wounds refused to die.
He carried anger like a torch; it kept the night at bay,
While friends grew up, he merely grew in walls of self-defense.
Every smile felt counterfeit, each kindness slipped away,
Because trust, he thought, was weakness cloaked in fine pretense.
But time has teeth, and youth decays when faith’s denied too long,


He left his home to chase a dream that seemed both fierce and frail.
A college city called his name, the hum of human throng,
Where people spoke of meaning more than money, fame, or mail.
There, books became his quiet balm—he learned the mind’s design,
That wounded hearts constrict themselves, repeating what they know.


He saw his parents mirrored then, their fear was also mine,
A curse in need of breaking, if one dared to let it go.
In lecture halls, he met his ghosts in Freud and Maslow’s word,
In classmates’ eyes he saw himself with empathy renewed.
The truth was simple, yet profound—the past could be deferred,


But not denied: to heal, one must confront what once was crude.
One late night by the river’s edge, his thoughts became a prayer,
Not to some god beyond the sky, but something deep within.


He whispered thanks for every hurt that sculpted him aware,
For only through his fracture could he grow beyond his skin.
He started calling friends again, though trust came slow and odd,
Began to hear his mother’s tears, not as a form of blame.
Forgiveness came like gentle rain from some forgiving god,


Or maybe from that hidden place where love and logic came.
Through understanding, Dane rebuilt the house he’d burned before,
With windows wide to let in air, not walls to shut out pain.
He learned that strength was not the fist but opening the door,
To let compassion find its way through every loss and gain.
Now when he speaks, his words are scarred, but tender at the seam,


He tells the young that desperation isn’t just despair.
It’s sometimes the great crack that lets through a deeper dream,
The place where broken boys become the men who finally care.
For Dane, the past still whispers soft, but doesn’t hold his hand,
He knows that love is learned, not found, through patience more than pride.


From wounded child to thinking man, he’s come to understand—
That pain, when faced, transforms to peace no rage can ever hide.

…

DCG

Life hack #4 

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To forgive is not for the “sole sake” of relieving another of their guilt, but rather for the “sake of the soul” that had been perpetrated upon!

DC Gunnersen

…

DCG

Forgive and let go of the past 

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I have a lot to think about

I look at this past year and I ruminate

She loves me, she loves me not

I remember the times that makes me hesitate

As children we played hide and seek

With more than just two

As adults we also play

But now it’s only me and you

We hide behind our masks

We hide behind our texts

We avoid the white elephant before us

Are we not vexed?

The trouble with hiding behind a smile

Is revealed when we look into a mirror

Our reflection shows the disconnect

The contrast becomes more clearer

As kids we danced on the playground

We now dance around our emotional state

How long must we avoid these wounds?

How long must we wait?

I pray for an act of God‘s mercy

For you and I to heal

For you to behold

For you to feel

I am confident there is good medicine between us

We must both remove the mask

Show the soft underbelly

Forgive and let go of the past

RSP

…

DCG

All the worlds a stage 

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All the world’s a stage, or so they say,
And I forget my lines most every night.
I smile on cue and act like I’m okay,
While something in me knows this isn’t right.
I wear a face that fits the room I’m in,
And trade my truth for everyone’s applause.
The crowd stands up and calls my costume “win,”
But leaves me lonely with the hidden cost.
The mirror keeps rehearsing with my eyes,
It asks, “Is this the self you really are?”
I answer back with carefully shaped lies,
And feel the distance like a growing scar.
The script says, “Play the hero, never weak,”
So I pretend that doubt is just a phase.
But underneath, my fragile bones still creak,
From holding up this role most of my days.
I joke and bow to hide what I can’t face,
The fear that no one wants the naked me.
I fill the silence with a borrowed grace,
And hope they never sense my slow unease.
Yet every scene I fake becomes a chain,
Each gentle lie adds weight I cannot name.
The loudest pain is not another’s pain,
It’s when I vanish underneath my game.
One night the spotlight burns a little hot,
It lights the parts I never meant to show.
The lines fall out, the perfect mask is not,
My careful story cracks in trembling glow.
No one walks out; the seats remain the same,
Some even lean in closer just to see.
Their quiet eyes are softer than my shame,
As if they’re waiting to feel safe to be.
I speak without a script, my voice unsure,
The words are simple, but they land like stone.
“I’m tired of acting like I’m always pure,
I’m scared, I fail, I hate to feel alone.”
The stage goes still; the hush becomes my friend,
A sacred pause where I can finally breathe.
For once my inner lines and outer blend,
The mask slips off and hangs like autumn leaves.
The truth does not destroy the show tonight,
It turns the wooden stage into a heart.
To live authentic is to risk the light,
And let the real self walk out from the part.
So if the world’s a stage, then let it be,
A place where broken actors still come true.
Where courage means you dare to show the me,
That shakes with fear, yet steps in honest view.

…

DCG

Casualty of loss- redacted

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– “Casualty of Loss”

I woke to find my name erased from stone,

A casualty of loss, dismissed, alone.

The photographs still hang but look away,

Their eyes recede like tides at end of day.

The room remembers more than I recall,

Its silent witnesses outnumber all.

I trace the dust where once your coffee steamed,

The warmth has left, but still the mug is dreamed.

We built our days like castles out of sand,

Pretending tide could bargain with our hand.

The sea arrived as if on quiet feet,

And swallowed every claim we called complete.

Now meaning limps, a soldier from the war,

Unsure what any sacrifice was for.

My thoughts grow teeth and circle in the night,

They gnaw the ribs that sheltered once-delight.

I pace the narrow hallway of my mind,

Each door is locked by something left behind.

The mirror will not answer when I speak,

It only shows an echo, gray and weak.

I lost you once, but then I lost my way,

As if your leaving emptied out the day.

The clocks still move, but time has gone askew,

It limps in circles, always back to you.

I bargain with my ghosts for one reprieve,

They only nod and whisper, “Let it grieve.”

The world outside still riots into bloom,

Yet each bright petal mocks this inner gloom.

I walk through crowds, a stranger in my skin,

A vacant house with broken floors within.

The mind replays the moment things were torn,

A film that will not stop or be re-scorn.

Self-doubt sits down and pours another drink,

It toasts the story where I always sink.

I tell myself the fault is all my own,

And crown my shame with thorns I’ve overgrown.

But somewhere in this maze a window waits,

A crack of sky that wider light creates.

I hear a distant song, a stranger’s tune,

It braids with wind and wanders past the moon.

The melody remembers what I’ve lost,

Yet hints that nothing loved is ever tossed.

I open up a vein of honest tears,

And wash the rust from long-neglected years.

The heart, though bruised, still trembles when it hears,

That love outlives our damage and our fears.

I stand amid the ruins, breathing slow,

A casualty of loss, but not of hope below.

The scar will outline where the wound once bled,

A quiet map from brokenness to bread.

…

DCG

The post “A Casualty of Loss” is protected on the site, but the tag listing shows it grouped under “Existential Bewilderment,” alongside themes of disconnection, alienation, and the slow psychological erosion that comes from losing what once sustained a person’s sense of meaning and belonging. What can be said with confidence is that the title and context signal someone who has been inwardly damaged by loss—of love, identity, or connection—struggling to understand how that loss has altered their way of being in the world.[thundergodblog]

The quiet charity of loving

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The Quiet Charity of Loving”


I loved you as the dawn loves light,
Though darkness asked me to remain.
The sky was empty, but so bright,
It taught me joy can live with pain.
To give one’s heart and ask no prize,
Is worship whispered to the air.
For even when no answer flies,
The act itself becomes a prayer.
We love because to cease is death,
Our souls are orphaned when they hide.
Each longing shapes our mortal breath,
Each silence builds the place we bide.
You were the mirror I could hold,
Reflecting mercy into view.
My hands were empty, yet consoled,
For love became the work I do.
Not all who give must then be fed,
Some sow the wheat they’ll never taste.
But kindness lingers when it’s bled,
And sanctifies what time erased.
To want, yet will the other free,
To ache, yet hope their wings ascend—
That is the quiet mastery,
The art of one who loves as friend.
For hearts grow full when not confined,
When grace transcends the claim of name.
The truest lover is resigned
To bless the loss, not curse the flame.
Each wound refines what faith began,
Each tear instructs the heart to see.
We love not just for flesh or span,
But for who we may choose to be.
So if you never spoke my name,
Still, I am grateful for the sound.
For love unspent is not in vain,
It plants its heaven in the ground.
And from that soil, ghosts bloom wide—
Petals of patience, light, and care.
Unanswered hearts may yet abide
As proof that goodness lingers there.

RSP

…

DCG

Screenshot

A good upbringing never goes out of style 

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Reciprocity isn’t always as important

With a mature understanding of your emotional intelligence

The development of our communication

Our ability to find the relevance

How many of us have misunderstanding?

Expectations, , miscalculations or just wrong?

Those without sin cast the first stone

Yet knowing some people, you may still want to run and go Long

The sentiment of “taking the high road“

Should not only be a reaction to the other person‘s behavior

I would rather argue

Preemptively  strive for a high road that you can savor

As for appearance, if nature has been really, really good to you

Then the “city girls just seem to find out early how to open doors with just a smile“

But on the inside, they might be missing

A good upbringing never goes out of style

…

DCG

Do you live on borrowed time? 

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Do you live on borrowed time?

Do you let life just pass you by?

Do you live in an existential bewilderment?

You’re so choked up you  can’t even cry.

We see our lives pass

Never found your purpose?

Rich or poor you barely just get by

Don’t think about what is important

The only thing left to do is die

Right before our eyes

Did you take notice?

Or did you find yourself surprised?

Do we ask the right questions?

Do we empathize?

Do we follow nonsensical thoughts? 

Do we self hypnotize?

If you have oxytocin

But no purpose in your life to guide

You will go where the wind blows

Never knowing how to escape the imposing riptide

Kierkegaard

Netzche

Heidegger

Jasper‘s

Sattre

Camus

If “God is dead“ and “we are thrown into the world“

Then “life is absurd“ – and what can you do

Sometimes the more questions we ask, the more we find the more we don’t know

If we follow the paradigm of rational thought 

Nothing more than t our pride is shown

Borrowing breath we never own,
Measuring life by the hours that fly,
Building faith out of the unknown.

Haunted by clocks that do not sleep,


Our worth unmeasured by their rust,


Our promise deeper than what we keep.

If time is a loan, then let us spend,
Not hoard each hour in trembling fear,


But burn our truth until the end,


And hold the fleeting moment near.

For even gods once learned to die,


Their heavens cracked with mortal flame,


Yet mortals learn to testify
Through loss, through love, through sacred shame.

We live as thieves of passing breath,


Yet our crime is holy, bold, divine,


For in defying death with death,


We prove that life itself will shine.

So let the borrowed moments fade,


And leave their ache upon the bone,


For meaning isn’t found — it’s made,


Carved fierce from what was never known.

…

DCG

Prologue
This poem wrestles with a deep fear many of us share but rarely voice — the sense that life is temporary, and that time isn’t ours to keep. It asks: if everything we love is fleeting, what gives our lives meaning? It challenges the reader to rise up from despair and make something sacred out of the short time we’re given. In other words, it’s about finding purpose in the face of our mortality, not by denying our limits, but by defying them.