J'ai la tête ailleurs
Nov. 16th, 2015 05:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
castalieThe days following a terrorist attack are so odd... especially when said attacks have occurred after a weekend, maybe. There's this sort of dissonance between RL life (going back to work, resuming your usual activities) and the feeling that RL has been suspended for a while. The country is still in shock and still trying to make sense of what happened and, at the same time, the country is resuming its everyday life... except your mind is still on the victims and the madness that happened just 48 hours ago. This morning I couldn't help thinking of those 129 people who would never go back to work, would never go back to class, would never start a new week. What about the 350 wounded, the 80 whose lives still hang in the balance? What about those who survived, physically unscathed but forever changed?
At noon today a minute of silence was held everywhere in France (and across Europe as well?), we all gathered in the courtyard of our university and after the speech, they gave the names of the students from our university who had been killed. There were two of them, Vincent and Valeria. It was to be expected, many Parisian universities have lost one of their own over the weekend - teachers, staff or students - but it was still... odd. The world is a much smaller place than you'd think; all day I've been in contact with people who knew someone who lost someone during the attacks. I guess when you attack such "common" locations, there's a familiarity that makes things so much more difficult. You know those places, you've been there or your family, your friends. There's no real distance between you and the "crime scenes", I guess. If that makes sense.
And we're thinking of the aftermath... people are angry, sad, worried. I've had a sort of heated argument with some of my cousins on Sunday, they were saying we should cancel our outings in the upcoming weeks, maybe the upcoming months, my aunt was ranting about "not playing heroes, we're not living in a comic book" and I kept thinking, this is it, it's starting.... How is going to the restaurant being a hero? Should we just stay home from now on? For how long? Being smart is one thing, ok, but how can you be smart and careful when just living your life? Taking public transport, going to the cinema, to a restaurant, to a fucking concert! GD and I were supposed to see Years and Years tonight at the Casino de Paris but the gig has been cancelled... are we supposed to stop going to concerts altogether? Go back in ten months? Charlie Hebdo was ten months ago, how can you predict anything?
The Christmas season is upon us... that time of the year when crowds gather in malls and shops, in the streets, when people go to even more shows, spend an afternoon at the Christmas markets, enjoy a couple of hours at the Galeries Lafayette to see the window displays, should we be afraid? Not go? Is going being stupid? Will it be our fault if something happens to us then?
I also know we shouldn't even have this type of conversation so soon after the facts, I really do. We're reacting emotionally not rationally. I'm also sorry about all this, which is clearly the kind of discourse only privileged people would have. I keep thinking of those people who live in a country where those attacks happen on a regular basis, who live in a country at war, where fear is just part of their lives. But that's it, we're not used to it, we're lucky and privileged, we live our lives unaware of that kind of threat and thing is, 2015 has been a reminder that such is not the case everywhere and, yeah, it sucks.
I think I'll end this entry with this absolutely brilliant video of John Oliver sharing his feelings over the attacks and sending a message to terrorists: Fuck you assholes. Thank you, sir.
(I promise I'll try not to ramble too much here and spam you with disturbing content, or egoistical entries, but I think I just need to let go of some feelings right now...)
At noon today a minute of silence was held everywhere in France (and across Europe as well?), we all gathered in the courtyard of our university and after the speech, they gave the names of the students from our university who had been killed. There were two of them, Vincent and Valeria. It was to be expected, many Parisian universities have lost one of their own over the weekend - teachers, staff or students - but it was still... odd. The world is a much smaller place than you'd think; all day I've been in contact with people who knew someone who lost someone during the attacks. I guess when you attack such "common" locations, there's a familiarity that makes things so much more difficult. You know those places, you've been there or your family, your friends. There's no real distance between you and the "crime scenes", I guess. If that makes sense.
And we're thinking of the aftermath... people are angry, sad, worried. I've had a sort of heated argument with some of my cousins on Sunday, they were saying we should cancel our outings in the upcoming weeks, maybe the upcoming months, my aunt was ranting about "not playing heroes, we're not living in a comic book" and I kept thinking, this is it, it's starting.... How is going to the restaurant being a hero? Should we just stay home from now on? For how long? Being smart is one thing, ok, but how can you be smart and careful when just living your life? Taking public transport, going to the cinema, to a restaurant, to a fucking concert! GD and I were supposed to see Years and Years tonight at the Casino de Paris but the gig has been cancelled... are we supposed to stop going to concerts altogether? Go back in ten months? Charlie Hebdo was ten months ago, how can you predict anything?
The Christmas season is upon us... that time of the year when crowds gather in malls and shops, in the streets, when people go to even more shows, spend an afternoon at the Christmas markets, enjoy a couple of hours at the Galeries Lafayette to see the window displays, should we be afraid? Not go? Is going being stupid? Will it be our fault if something happens to us then?
I also know we shouldn't even have this type of conversation so soon after the facts, I really do. We're reacting emotionally not rationally. I'm also sorry about all this, which is clearly the kind of discourse only privileged people would have. I keep thinking of those people who live in a country where those attacks happen on a regular basis, who live in a country at war, where fear is just part of their lives. But that's it, we're not used to it, we're lucky and privileged, we live our lives unaware of that kind of threat and thing is, 2015 has been a reminder that such is not the case everywhere and, yeah, it sucks.
I think I'll end this entry with this absolutely brilliant video of John Oliver sharing his feelings over the attacks and sending a message to terrorists: Fuck you assholes. Thank you, sir.
(I promise I'll try not to ramble too much here and spam you with disturbing content, or egoistical entries, but I think I just need to let go of some feelings right now...)
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Date: 2015-11-16 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-20 01:34 pm (UTC)