Je suis Charlie

Touching Paris

Although I had been dreaming of time off without direction or demands before the holidays; I have been wallowing in a glut of directionless hours between college semesters and worrying about my future. Truly, this is a symptom of wealth and ease that marks me as as a privileged person, especially in a world where food & water are scarce commodities for whole populations and the safety of a warm home are luxuries citizens of many countries do without. Not that any of these guilty realizations has made me feel any better, indeed not, simply said my pain garners my attention, because it's the pain I feel. Odd, how inwardly focused I have become! Not that my life concerns are any more or less petty, but like everyone else, the burdens we each bear become the burdens we are intensely interested in lightening.

Unfortunately, the future is never previewed, instead arriving piecemeal, accompanied by whatever shock or awe its newness engenders. We are all unsuspecting victims. French cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo are assassinated... for cartoons. Free speech throughout the world is suddenly in jeopardy or more accurately, free speech in the free world is threatened. This has our attention, for a moment. Let's not forget how unexpectedly privileges or life itself can be eliminated... especially when we move past this initial shock and re-heft our own burdens.