Some upheavals arrive too fast to stage. Yet meaning-making can transform their aftermath. Research on post-traumatic growth (Tedeschi and Calhoun, 1996) finds that, with support, people can reconstruct identity, deepening purpose and relationships. Clear risk communication—early, empathetic, and consistent (Covello, 2003)—also stabilizes expectations, shortening the period of painful uncertainty.
Thus, Shelley’s insight endures not as fatalism but as design brief: the mind suffers when change is great and sudden, so we owe ourselves pace when possible and honest scaffolding when it is not. In both cases, continuity of meaning is the gentlest medicine. [...]
