I’ve been writing a lot lately.
Not in a structured, “this is the plan” kind of way, but more in a way where one idea leads into another, and before I realize it, there’s a thread running through everything.
I didn’t fully see it at first, but looking back over the last few posts, it’s pretty clear what I’ve been circling:
Trying to stay awake.
Trying to stay grounded.
And trying to make sense of a world that feels increasingly hard to process.
So I wanted to pull a few of these together—not as a highlight reel, but as a way to show how they connect.
Politics, God, and Grief in Greenville, SC
This is probably the clearest expression of where my head has been.
It’s about living in Greenville, where faith and politics are both strong, and trying to reconcile those things with what’s actually happening in the world.
It’s also about silence—why people avoid hard conversations, and what that costs us.
The Etiquette of Disagreement (Or: How Not to Lose Everyone)
After writing about politics and silence, this felt like the natural next step.
If we’re going to talk about hard things, how do we actually do that without losing each other in the process?
This one is about how we’ve shifted from debating ideas to attacking identities—and what it might look like to step out of that cycle.
Tales of a Midlife Drifter
This one started with a simple video and turned into something bigger.
It’s about drifting—not as failure, but as something more complicated. Generational expectations, lack of exposure to different paths, and trying to figure out what a meaningful life actually looks like.
I Shouldn’t Be Here Or: On Faith and the Never-Ending Story
This is one of the more personal ones.
It comes out of multiple near-death experiences, recovery, and a long-standing struggle with faith—not abandoning it, but trying to understand it in a way that feels real.
Why We Accept the World As It Is
This one looks at passivity.
Why we see problems, recognize them, and still don’t act.
Not because we don’t care—but because of how we’ve learned to process the world.
Prayer, Mercy, and the Sound of Now
This is more reflective—less about politics, more about presence.
What prayer actually is, what mercy looks like, and how we relate to the moment we’re in.
I Worry About the World My Son Is Growing Into
This one is exactly what it sounds like.
Less abstract, more direct. Looking at the world through the lens of being a father and asking what kind of future we’re actually building.
Hope Is Not Passive
This idea keeps coming back for me.
Hope isn’t something you send out and wait on. It’s something that demands something from you.
This piece is about that shift—from wishing to acting.
Closing
None of these are meant to be final answers.
If anything, they’re part of an ongoing process of trying to understand what’s happening around me, and what my place in it is.
I don’t think I’ve figured anything out completely.
But I do think there’s value in paying attention.
In staying awake.
In staying grounded.
And in trying to help others do the same.
Frank M. Anderson's Writing 
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