The Line in the Sand

Choosing a New Path Beyond Past Missteps.

It has taken me years to reach this point, but I have drawn a line in the sand. Why now? Because tomorrow is too late, and yesterday is gone. More seriously, I am recognising and breaking free from an error I made long ago, one I kept repeating in a self-destructive loop.

This error is the same one made by Dagny Taggart, the protagonist of Atlas Shrugged, a novel centred on the vital role of reason and the mind in sustaining life, and on the struggle to defend these values against overwhelming opposition. Like her, I treated causes doomed to fail as if sheer effort alone could save them. I poured my time and energy into places where they were neither welcomed nor effective. I failed to set the boundaries that respect the value of my own mind and time. But unlike Dagny, my mistake was not confined to one great cause, it played out again and again in spaces where genuine engagement was absent.

This realisation comes not from anger or hatred but from quiet reflection and the urgent need to protect the one resource we can never get back: time. For far too long, I stepped into rooms that offered nothing but noise, offence, and silence in return. I am not writing this to boast or to wallow in frustration at shouting into the void without even the satisfaction of an echo. The void here is like standing on a cliff, shouting at the endless sky and sea - alone, unheard, and with no one to respond. I am writing this because I see now how little there was to gain. Only because a string of recent experiences, striking in their closeness, forced me to finally see the error clearly, one that lasted for years.

For much of my life, I acted like a missionary, even as I laughed at those who preached for their creeds; The irony is not lost on me. I worked hard to explain, to be heard, to connect, only to meet indifference or misinterpretation. It was exhausting, fruitless, and wrong. It was wishful thinking at best and needless self-torment at worst.

I spent hours on people who had no interest in genuine discussion, or who were missionaries for their own beliefs, closed to anything else. I wasted time trying to break down their defences so they could “get it.” I now see I was not debating people at all; I was speaking into that void. These individuals were closed off, recycling the same lines without questioning their own premises. Their arguments were more performance than pursuit of truth — sport or proselytism, not engagement.

All of this formed part of a larger mistake, one I ignored until now. This is not defeat but a choice to reorient myself after admitting I was wrong. My focus will now be on where my efforts are productive and where they matter most, to protect my life, my time, and my energy.

This line I have drawn is not a wall to keep others out; it is a boundary to keep my energy in. I will no longer scatter myself in conversations where no one wishes to be challenged, only reassured. I have had enough of being drained.

This is about me, not them. I am not closing myself off, nor am I disappearing. This boundary is about preserving my energy, not shutting people out. Think of it like an ideal border, open to those who come with respect and sincerity, but closed to those who only drain or disrupt. This isn’t giving up; it’s choosing to be a light for those who want it, and quietly observing those in sight who don’t.

I stand here for those who want a different perspective and are willing to explore alternatives. Thus, I am making a clean break after testing what works and what only depletes me. I know now what can be preserved and what must be left behind, and I will refine this boundary over time.

From here, I will embrace what works and withdraw from what does not. I will not let the whim of others dictate my course, only the guidance of reality. I will not fight the negative; I will invest in the positive, with those who care enough to engage. If that means leaving some people behind, even those close to me, so be it. My life and well-being come first.

I will no longer explain myself to those who have no interest in understanding. I will not exhaust myself in endless back-and-forth with the closed-minded. I am finished being the missionary in fights where my opponents barely know what they are fighting for. And I will not allow their baseless smears to slow my pursuit of truth.

I write this first to myself, as a marker of the day I stopped. No more waste. No more chasing the void. No more treating arguments as theatre. Truth is too important for that, and life is too short.

So this is where I stand, on the far side of the line I have drawn, looking not back or sideways but forward, toward a road I have yet to travel but know is worth walking. What started unintentionally with earlier reflections — Learning How to Say I and Mean It, a Letter to the Void — has quietly become a trilogy, a gradual unfolding of personal clarity and resolve. This piece is the conclusion of that journey, the moment where past missteps become lessons and the future opens with intention.

One thing I know for certain: this is my line in the sand.