So, how do you live it, this war? I know she’s a long way from us. In Montreal, the greatest dangers are always the Omicron and the icy sidewalks. Nothing to do with the reality of Ukrainians this morning. Imagine being bombarded. Repeat. Hear the shell whistling, and wonder if it will fall on your house. War is an endless terrorist attack.
Posted at 7:00 a.m.
We are in no position to complain. When our biggest concern is the organization of the spring break. But all the same, it reaches us, this war. I would even say that it scares us. Very scared. We watch the news and we have the impression of seeing a documentary on the Second World War. You know, those documentaries that fascinate us so much. We look at it reassuringly, telling ourselves that the world is better now. Really ?
All the ingredients are there. A falling wall. A fallen empire. Another empire that takes the opportunity to expand its influence. A dictator who promises his nation to restore its power, to better impose his own. And leaders around who think only of their financial interests. Our elders have already played in this film. Will our children be part of the remake ?
Okay, excuse me. These are not words that will help you relax. And God knows you need it. After these two years of daily anguish. To fear the invisible. Can we just have peace? It seems not.
What are we doing ? Do we stop watching the news? Nowadays, it is not us who watch the news, it is the news which watches us. They appear everywhere, on our phone, on our screens. We know everything, without wanting to. The real news, like the fake ones. Impossible to escape them.
We must therefore learn to integrate them. To use it. To learn from it.
It’s a bit shameful to admit, but the conflict in Ukraine helps us to accept our fate. Suddenly, it annoys us less to wait until March 14 to return to karaoke. We appreciate how lucky we are to have never experienced the horror of armed conquest.
And then there is our prodigious ability to adapt. Filtration. There, we are in shock, because the war has just broken out. We are taken aback. We are flabbergasted. But in a few days, we will regain our senses. You always end up getting used to dramas, especially other people’s dramas. News never stays new for long. There’s always new news to make her old.
In a month, Ukraine may no longer be in the headlines. It will be good for our morale, but terrible for the rest of things. It is always in the general indifference that the worst horrors are born. The war in Ukraine, it had been preparing for years, while we looked elsewhere.
It’s not easy to be a human in 2022. If we worry too much about humanity, we put our mental health at risk. And if we don’t care enough for her, we become guilty by omission.
So we balance between the two. By asking the haunting question: how can we change that? How can we change that?
It is so beyond us, war. And so above those who make it. And so much above those who suffer it. One day, all those below would have to stop serving those above.
I know, that sounds conspiratorial. But it is quite the opposite. There is a margin between imposing the wearing of masks to protect people’s health and declaring war, therefore the death of thousands of people. It is in these plans that no people should embark.
In the meantime, we suffer. We comment. Economic sanctions, can that stop the invader? In all these bargains with the Russians, each party found its profit. These were not gifts. How will ending it only hurt one side? While we are explaining, bombs have just exploded. To be horrified, to worry, to sympathize, to criticize, to question, to feel nothing at all, to dream of a better world, then to continue with one’s life, appreciating it a little more. And you, how do you live the war?