Week 6: "Senselessness"

I’m feeling hopeless.

The News.

Oh the dreaded news with a capital N. 

I’ve been reading stories about the death of the young Jordanian fighter pilot, captured by ISIS militants and burned alive in a cage. A cage. The militants video-taped the entire thing. A 22 minute video showing such incredible anguish and horror. Torture. Death. I saw a brief still photo of the footage, alongside a photograph showing Queen Rania hugging the pilot’s wife after she had learned of her husband's death through Facebook.

Facebook.

King Abdullah II also went with Queen Rania to the small Jordanian village of Aya where Moaz al-Kassabeh, the fighter pilot, and his family are from. Looking at the pictures of Anwar Tarawneh and her husband, Moaz break my heart. They were only married for six months. He was 26 years old.

26.

My age.

My age.

Jordan has since launched aerial attacks on Syria where ISIS has set up camps. Video footage of those attacks have also been on the News along with pictures show Arabic writing on missiles which say, “for you, the enemy of Islam”.

Murder. Deaths. 

Bombs. Deaths. 

Attack. Deaths. 

Counter-attack. Deaths.

When will it end?

I feel so hopelessly naïve asking this, but why do people kill other people? Really? Why? What instinct or feeling or idea or belief is so strong that it can compel someone to take the life of another human being?

Love. Greed. Vengeance. Power.

These are the “answers” I read when I look up articles or read stories about acts of murder. Because that is what we are doing when we go to war. Committing government sanctioned murder. Murder is still murder even if it’s the “bad guy”.

As children we are told to think about the consequences of our actions. Children, and most adults really, are impulsive by nature. We act without thinking. Yet as grown ups we know that this is wrong and that we should strive to think ahead. The reason I don’t understand murder is because I don’t understand what it achieves. If someone kills someone I love, how will killing that person in return make me feel better? Will it bring back my loved one? No. Will it make me feel better? No. So what is the point?

What is the point?

I need to know.

Is this why people seek religion in times of crisis? We cannot grapple with the complexities of life on our own so we must look to a higher all-powerful, all-knowing figure to justify the ridiculousness of human actions?

Kids with cancer. Another complexity of life I will never be able to understand.

There are so many senseless things in life. Try as we might to control the people and world around us, the truth is, we all have very little control over our lives. We can control little things: like the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the way we chose to spend our time, but we cannot control our bodies on a cellular level, we cannot control our brains, we cannot control the weather, we cannot control other people. So how must we live? In a constant state of chaos? No. In a state of acceptance. If we cannot control the world around us, the only thing we can do is accept it. Pain begets pain. Misery begets misery. Hatred begets hatred. The only way to stop it all is to just stop. Stop. Accept. I don’t mean to give up. No, acceptance is more powerful than giving up. It’s giving in. Its achieving control through relinquishing control and finding peace by not allowing external factors to affect you or force you to take unnecessary action.

Queen Raina of Jordan comforts Anwar Tarawneh, wife of the pilot who was brutally murdered at the hands of ISIS militants, at her late husband's ancestral home near the southern town of Karak

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2942003/It-checked-Facebook-knew-Wife-pilot-murdered-ISIS-shares-heart-wrenching-moment-learned-death-comforted-Jordan-s-Queen-Raina-late-husband-s-home.html#ixzz3Qx8CPpQg

The slickly-edited video released tonight contains aerial shots that appear to show Jordanian strikes on Islamic State targets. The Royal Jordanian Air Force launched strikes on Syria this morning

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2942003/It-checked-Facebook-knew-Wife-pilot-murdered-ISIS-shares-heart-wrenching-moment-learned-death-comforted-Jordan-s-Queen-Raina-late-husband-s-home.html#ixzz3Qx8cMjbL