Every day for the past several weeks, the headlines have been beyond fiction. Wars flare up despite the 100th anniversary of WWI urging us to never forget the costs of war, aircraft fall from the sky victims of wrong place/wrong time at a time when even air air has lost its purity of place, and a deadly, invisible force now takes the lives of hundreds upon hundreds with just one tiny drop of its terrifyingly rapid viral reach.
How can it be these are the times we are living in?
How can it be this is the degree of uncivilised behaviour 21st Century civilisation is willing and able to show.
And how can it be that this is how we showcase how close the world has brought us together through technology, through aviation, through the basic desire to connect?
The reality is so raw. How remarkably far away from one another we seem to be in times when information, technical innovation and imagination are seemingly working so much harder to inspire and excite us to come closer.
And then more news breaks….a beloved artist’s life comes to an early end, his laughter, and his ability to create laughter, is eclipsed by the horror of his aloneness. And now the world cries.
How do we make such choices of when to come together, and when to look away? How do we hold our focus when sometimes what we see, and feel, is so overwhelming, ‘out there’ not only in physical geography but in the emotional. There is just so much to absorb…
And still more will happen, more choices will need to be made.
For all that we are able to see, all we are able to say, and the silence we are so often left with, may our silence be as embracing of those in need as our audible expressions of support.
And may all, everywhere, find rest in peace.
Copyright: ANITA MENDIRATTA 2014