Paris

 

It’s almost 1 am here in the UK. Really I should be mega hyped for tomorrow’s UFC after seeing that tussle at the press conference.  I’m tired after working a late shift, feeling severely down after coming home to be bombarded by news of the events in Paris. I need to get some thoughts down now before I turn in. I’m not going to rewrite this and make it read pretty, not even going to throw it through a spell checker, really it doesn’t seem important.

 

I have no words of wisdom, no special insight. I just need to vent and get these thoughts out of my head.

 

I have a beautiful friend who lives in Paris (she’s safe) like me she’s spent many years working in bookshops. She’d never hurt a soul and on her facebook she has a Jimi Hendrix quote “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. ”

 

A woman who means the absolute world to me was in Paris a very short time ago. A couple of years ago when a racist group marched through the city of Sheffield she took part in a counter demonstration and sneaked around a police barrier to confront the right wingers head on.  While in Paris she got engaged there to a young man who the last few months has commented constantly on facebook in support of Syrian refugees and their right to come and find shelter in Europe. He supports causes like this a lot. They are both good people.

 

They could have gone to Paris any weekend. Tonight’s events could have happned any weekend, could have easily happened the weekend they were there.

 

Many of my friends have visited Paris in the last few years. They could easily have chosen to gone this weekend.

 

I myself would like to visit Paris one day and go see my friend. When I’m on holiday on my own I tend to spend my evenings going to live music or sporting events. I could easily have chosen to go to a rock concert or an internnational football friendly, certainly would have gone out for a meal.

 

A lot of good people who did those things died tonight. The perputators didn’t bother to find out who they were killing, didn’t know the political leanings and beliefs, the good that those people do with their lives. They just slaughtered them, ending everything they were and ever could be in an arrogant belief that their religion and crusades mean more than the lives of over a hundred people and the despair that their loved ones are feeling right now.

 

And I feel hate for those murderers right now and their callous, fucked up ideology and warped way of life. I frankly don’t take pleasure in their deaths, because I want them to suffer, be captured alive and interrogated, they deserve no less.

 

I hate the existance of such a ludicrous sensibilty that a few months ago lead someone to feel justified in murdering a room full of people for daring to tell jokes. Can I suggest if a satire offends you then perhaps respond with some jokes of your own?

 

As well as the sadism of burning a pilot to death, extremmists have beheaded aid workers. That’s right, people who’s only crime was to go to a impovrished country to help strangers were kidnapped, paraded on camera and brutally murdered. How the hell can any group think that is the actions of a righteous people?

 

Tonight I truly was starting to despair.

 

Then I remembered a quote:

 

The one redeeming value of evil is that it causes people to do good.

 

I don’t know where the quote came from, I personally read it in a an X-Men comic during Age of Apocalypse.But in the face of any atrocity it’s proven time and again.

 

As well as all the messages and pledges of support on twitter, people tweeted and forwarded helpline numbers. There were tweets with residents of Paris offering to open their homes to strangers who needed shelter. Taxi drivers turned off their chargers and started driving people back to their homes for free. Facebook opened up a function to allow friends to let each other know they are safe and well. Tonight and in the coming days there will be many examples of volunteers putting their lives on hold, doing what they can to help strangers.

 

Of all things tonight one tweeter caught my eye and brought a lump to my throat. It was professional wrestler and supposed bad guy Kevin Owens.

 

He tweeted We live in a very strange world. So much good and so much bad…It’s quite hard to understand… Let’s just be kind to each other, yeah?

 

and followed it up with 

 

And to everyone telling me it’s not that simple or easy or not everyone thinks that way… Sure, that’s true…but just do your part.

 

(In a touching moment he signed off by posting pictures of his wife and children as the most beautiful thing he could think of in the face of ugliness),

 

He is of course right.

 

These evil bastards do what evil bastards do. They cause misery, ruin lives, destroy what is beautiful. It’s the only thing that evil bastards do, because it’s the only thing they can do.  They lack the imagination to respond to the world’s problems with an inspiring piece of art or song to bring people together. They lack the compassion and drive to respond to suffering by rallying to help those in need.

 

They are empty souls

 

While it’s scary that five people can cause this much tragedy, it’s consoling to me that it’s a very minor number of people who can bring themselves to commit them. The actions of the good, from the bravery of a fireman rushing without question towards the World Trade center on 9/11 to the simple act of kindness of opening your doors to give a stranger shelter far outweigh the negative actions of the few.

 

And that is somthing to be thankful for and to have faith in humanity.

 

At the start of this I had no idea where I was going with all this. I still don’t. I’m no poet, no philosopher, just a manchild who happens to have a friend who has a website and lets him write stuff on comics and wrestling. So I’m going to leave you with a quote from a real thinker and forever an idol of mine.

 

“It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here’s what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride: Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defense each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over – not one human being excluded – and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.”

 

Bill Hicks.

 

Spare a thought today

Dazza