scijessreads

I’ve written here about conflict and resolution before. And I posted this image a bit ago to Instagram. With this description:

“These words aren’t mine. I saved a screenshot of them months ago. They are from a nurse in Gaza, and they stuck with me. I come back to them randomly when the news shows something more about the conflicts going on around the globe (and even in our own backyard).

I’ve said it here before, in one of my pinned posts: those who suffer the most in any conflict are often those that had no choice in starting it. They are the ones that simply want to survive, to live. It’s a little hard not to be incredibly cynical these days. Little seems to change, no one actually listens, and everyone is more concerned with their own lives, not paying attention to the fact that a large chunk of humanity is hanging on by a very frayed thread. I’m guilty of it as much as anyone sometimes. Because it’s easier to look away and pretend rather than face reality when everything in the news is awful.”

I post this as a reminder that we are not out of this yet. That the world is not out of the woods yet in terms of coming to any meaningful sort of resolution to atrocity in the name of preservation. Because sometimes what one group seeks to preserve (or promote) is not necessarily a thing that needs to be saved. What needs to be saved is our collective humanity (if that even exists) and a commitment to the knowledge that lives are sacred. And that indiscriminate loss of life in the pursuit of a goal is not collateral that we should accept as inevitable.

If we wanted to, we could. The question is, do we all want to?