It's a tragic day, with the bombings in Bangkok. Then again, it's tragic every day. Whether it's a sudden bombing in a place so close to home, or the constant war claiming lives of children who never asked to be born into a world like that, or a personal tragedy of loss and grief. We know that people suffer every day, and there is a whole buffet of suffering you wonder how aliens must be looking at earth laughing at how weak we are. A few degrees change in our body temperature and we could die. We know that we are extremely privileged to be where we are, safe and healthy and able. Sometimes it takes news like today's to make us stop and reflect and put things in perspective.
Everyone has demons to fight. Some of these monsters are in the world, and some fester in us, and some of us become them. It really baffles me how we are one planet when our worlds differ so greatly. We could be in the same country, same social circle, same family and our worlds could differ. How much more when we have different political systems, cultures, routines. We don't sleep on concrete floors that could break at an attack or wake up to the sound of sirens and bombs, we fumble and hit snooze when our siren buzzes on the bed. We don't see our loved ones scattered on the streets like meat, we know their bodies will rest in their slumber in their beds. We don't wake up so angry with the world we feel we need to kill ourselves, nor do we wake up so angry with the world we feel the need to kill everyone.
We don't choose where we are born, we don't even choose to be born. While we have the luxury of struggling with accepting the bodies we are born in, we don't stop to realise we could have been born in a country where people are out to tear our bodies apart. How are we so different.
When the world around us shatters, we must feel the tremors. We must feel, even if we can never understand. This is what makes us human.