We don't seem to be able to keep up with the amount of attacks that are happening all over the world. Manchester, Kabul, London and I don't think there's any way to fully stop it but if there is what I saw this morning was, in my opinion, a definite step in the right direction. It seems that for the last few years we have been in such a downward spiral with a deep, dark fascination with the salacious that in this space we lost track of our dignity, integrity and without question our backbone. This has led to us glorifying the villain to perpetuate fear as much as possible. When people are afraid all the time they are much more likely to act within their baser instincts. When we are afraid we become more selfish, we hoard, we fall into identity politics and we police mindlessly other peoples actions because we are simply too afraid to look at their motives. This is what has been happening over the last 20 years and I would say that it's something that is now at fever pitch. But when fear becomes normalised there is also something else that happens. We have all developed the instinct to shut off our fear when it hits critical mass. It's an old survival instinct that is left over. A sort of emotional exhaustion takes place that opens a door to an incredible type of clarity.
You've probably heard a lot about people in life or death situations talking about how everything moves slowly. Like the brain all of a sudden has the ability to break down a situation into it's smallest pieces for purposes of survival. Well I think that is happening to us on a collective level. We are so sick of being afraid that we have begun to dismantle it from the ground up. Strangers are helping strangers. People are reaching out in times of need. We are collectively learning that empathy and compassion is what is going to heal and restore balance. We are examining the political structures and histories of what created this situation in the first place and we are starting to come together to find ways to resolve it going forward. You'll have noticed that people are more politically engaged now than ever. People are creating more diverse tapestries of throughout within their own lives. We are bored now with those who are so excited to have an opinion that they have forgotten to check if it's valid. We are bored with town criers on every facebook page and I saw it, in all places, on the news this morning.
You might have noticed that we are now talking about tales of courage, strength and community more than ever. We are subconsciously beginning to challenge the very ideas that put us where we are. There will be more attacks, we know this. Even is we stop selling guns to Saudi, even if we track every terrorist cell we can find. Someone, somewhere will be in such a state of perpetual fear that this will feel like a normalised action. We are beginning to wake up to the fact that we culturally need to atone. That we need to work on forgiving ourselves for the legacies our history has left us with. We now know, more than sometimes we feel like we can bare, our hand in all of this. The war in the middle east has finally begun to spill over onto our doorstep and demonising, vilifying and hating that doesn't stop it from happening. What does stop it is community. What does stop it is compassion. What does stop it is love. I read on a friends facebook post this morning that “love always wins” but I have to disagree. Love always wins is only half of the sentence. Love always wins when it is always defended. We have to defend it now for everyone, everywhere.
I stand with London,
I stand with Manchester,
I stand with Kabul,
I stand with America,
I stand with Iraq,
I stand with europe,
I... stand... with... everyone.
Thank you for reading,
Big Love,
Ryan James x
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