BEESANDTOES

To my friends, family and fellow humans…

 

I woke up this morning, in the comfort of our mobile rooftop tent in Mendoza, Argentina with a heavy heart.

 

The news of the horrific events of friday November 13th in Paris came as a complete shock. We were high in the Andes, at the Chile/Argentina border, when a man standing behind us heard us speaking french and asked if we had heard the news. We hadn’t. He described what had happened as we waited for the customs officer to stamp our passports. We listened in shock.

 

Since then I have had my mind fixated on this terrible act of terror. Despite being half way across the world, and in a paradisal environment, I cannot seem to get my head around the idea that the shootings happened in the city that I called home for three years. In the street I lived in a couple months back. I do not denigrate the violence that occurs day after day around the world but when such events happen in our reduced spectrum of tangible reality it takes much greater proportions. Suddenly what we have (sadly) become accustomed to seeing on screen, affects us directly. For my part I instantly worried about my friends and family that live in the very streets in which the shootings occurred. Thankfully all the people I know are safe yet I cry...

 

Today, more than ever I am ashamed to be human. When I see the incredible natural paradise in which we live in (animals, plants, oceans, forests, mountains, deserts…) I cannot believe we are a product of nature… When we say we act as animals, its is a clear misconception! We do not simply kill to feed and protect. We kill to harm, we kill to avenge, we kill for money and greed, we kill for religion, we kill for pleasure! We are clearly no ordinary “animal”.

 

I fully realise that this constant violence is a mere reflection of a deeper global human suffering, but it does not make it any easier to accept.

 

I am deeply saddened by the ever-growing violence and hatred humans inflict on each other. The level of suffering, desperation, anger, and human folie has reached unimaginable proportions. It seems we have lost all sense interconnection. Our political, economical and religious motivations have taken over our fundamental sense of humanity. Sorry did I say humanity? I don’t know what that word means anymore… We live in a world driven by bullets and bloodshed, where the loss of innocent lives caused by human conflict has become mere numbers on a screen, like the daily lottery. What we seem to forget in this battle of egos is that there is no winner, just loss and suffering at a global scale.