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Paris

November 22, 2015

 

Like most big cities Paris can be hectic, and even overwhelmingly indifferent to the individual. However, it didn’t deserve the invasion of the nazis during WWII, the death of Diana Spencer, the attack to Charlie Hebdo, and certainly didn’t deserve the multiple terrorist bombings and shootings the past November 13th.

At the end, those who really pay, for all of this monumental destruction, are innocent people, who are passing away younger and younger, without being able to have their chance in this life.

This tragedy is giving us, everyone still breathing, the opportunity to become part of something bigger than ourselves—part of reason. That’s the real challenge. The only victims of all these tragedies are real, everyday individuals, the ones actually toiling their way to survival.

We all are living the reality of our time, most people have been disrespected, abused, ignored, neglected, and/or abandoned at some point in their lives, one way or another. The fact that they don’t talk about it doesn’t mean they are not suffering, right now. In a world were the rich is getting richer, and the poor is getting poorer, where the income inequality is growing everyday, nobody is exempt from some form of pain. But the answer is not violence. Violence is an expression of punishment, and it has been long known that punishment doesn’t work. It doesn’t teach anything, and, as the result of it, people don’t become better individuals.

The challenge is to become part of reason. Reasonable people are all around, they had always been, and will always be. Because of them we still are alive, and we still have an opportunity to keep going. And if we don’t see them, it’s because we don’t know. Therefore, our job is to become knowledgeable of the world, and to open our minds to the ones around, also struggling, just like everybody else, those who choose to do something positive with their lives. And that is always accomplished through knowledge, because it allows us to see the big picture and the value we have as humans.

It may be tempting to respond to violence with even more violence, but that behavior only engenders more hatred and, as a result, it reduces us to rubble.

Taking justice in our hands is not the answer, because justice is too big of a concept to be handled by a few in the heat of despair. The answer is in universal knowledge, and in to live long enough to see the natural turns of the wheel of justice.

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