Sometimes the world is just too big.
Sometimes, my world is too small.
I retrace my steps around old towns; old cities I once lived,old picturesque memories I can still see hanging tangibly in the air around my heels.
I read the news; jihadi brides, Russian LGBTQ prosecutions, British votes, America’s First Female President???
And I find it difficult to commute.
Because I am simply little me, sitting on a sofa, in a city, with a cat.
The media seems insistent to tell me that all these variety of “terrorists” exist, but no one quite seems to understand what they stand for. All I know is that the majority are unlikely to welcome me for tea.
We regurgitate fear: ISIS must be feared, America must be feared, Putin must be feared, because it is only through fear that we gain control.
Is it?
Haven’t we learnt yet that history simply spins in an old repetitive cycle? America may today be the world’s policeman, Russia may today be hell on earth for those who do not fit the heterosexual “norm,” Iraq might still be fighting a war with “The West,” China might just be about to take over the world’s economy, Korea might be about to rear it’s angry head again… It’s happened before. It will happen again. We have feared it before. We will fear it again.
It is only once we stop fearing, once we truly meet each other on equal footing, once we achieve understanding that there shall be no more fear, no more fighting; it is only once we all stop fearing that we shall be safe.
It seems ridiculous to me that we still live like this. We should know better by now. But to overcome this fear, we need something we are all so much more afraid of: understanding.
Because God forbid, if we actually understood that thing that we don’t like, that we fear, that we think we might hate…God forbid, if we actually understood those we feel we should oppose, we might actually find that we have some common ground. That perhaps we might want similar things: similar dreams for our families, similar desires for our children, similar chances beyond simply surviving.
Then again, we might not.
I am probably wrong; that’s why it hasn’t happened yet. But imagine if I wasn’t, imagine just what we are all missing out on, simply because we believe in fear.
But I am just little me, sitting on a sofa, in a city, with a cat.
And my voice is quiet.
