It's been three days since the plane crash. On that day my mom read on the Facebook-page of my niece a message of a friend of her saying that she "just heard about the plane crash, and since she (my niece) always travels to that kind of countries, she hoped she hadn't died." My niece obviously just sat savely at home, but I thought that that was 1) quite a weird thing to say (especially on something like Facebook. What'd you espect?! "Yes I'm dead, soz"... or maybe something less gruesome). And 2) it also made me think about how this, in theory (besides the fact that you specifically need to be seated in that specific plane at that specific moment etc), could've happen to anyone. Just like the metro accident earlier this week in Russia. Personally you've got nothing to do with the whole happening, and yet you're personally involved. As someone said on the news "The scary thing is, it could've happen to everyone. We all do our regular things day after day, that's the real tragic behind it." Another woman said regarding the plane crash (she went on the next flight of the same airlines) "I'm actually physically ill because of the whole happening. However, as a matter of speaking, if you'll stay at home because of this, the rooftop will fall upon your head." 

The tragedy of these stories is to be found in the innocence of life that has been taken. After the announcement of the crash on the news, the newsreader followed with 'in other news: more people have died in this war and other people have died in this car accident' and so on and so on. It's all just so overwhelming and it seems as if nowadays everybody dies (I've asked my mom, people have died previous to these events. But still...). It seems like tragedy is followed by tragedy. Not to sound ignorant, but it's like electronic equipment. If the tv stops working, the freezer melts and your phone gets fried.

Initially I was very hesitant to write these words down because 1) the whole thing is surreal and gives me nightmares. And 2) the national tv channel "neatly" interrupted the programme they were broadcasting, while a commercial channel didn't. At the commercial channel they were broadcasting this sort of gossip/celebrity programme which is live, and thus they "handled" the happening. This to be interspersed with their own content (which basically means "look at all those people who died in a plane" and "look at this c-star who've worn these trousers that are, like, soooo last season"). I just thought it was a bit disrespectful and the whole shebang angered me in some way. I for one don't really think that this blog is the right place to put these words (atleast not in a "news worthy way", if ya know what I mean). But still I think I can't just go and type about ribbons and cows without mentioning a word about it. Just in a matter of courtesy, I guess.

In some way you could say that how the commercial channel handled it as they did is very in the spirit of now. It reminded me of this warfilm I once saw in History class a long long time ago (because you know, there's no better way to learn well-posed teens the concept of war by showing a Hollywood film about it). And although I haven't seen a lot of it (warfilms aren't ma thang and I get nightmares and anxiety and whatever), one thing really stuck into my mind. At some point there are people hiding in a hotel or something and they're trying to get saved by calling people abroad (again... or something) and there is this foreign journalist with them who says to the leader of the group that we in the west get, so to say, bombarded with these images of sadness and war and that we're all so used to it. The impact he was hoping for will thus not be as big as he thinks it'll be, because we are known to the dreadful images we get exposed by everyday on the news (as a segment of more war and explosions and sadness). We watch the news, see all the horrids of the world, stand still at the awful business of life and then get on with that of our own. We get overloaded by information, and at some point we get used to a certain standard of badness before we think "well that's absolutely dreadful, we must do something about that."

This all gives you (me) the feeling that you (I) must do something about... well basically everything. But what? I don't know to be honest, but it makes you (me) more aware of life in general. How weird it all is (spoiler: very weird and unfair and sad yet also happy and a big ball of nothingness surrounded by everything). I can't remember which episode of QI this was mentioned, but there was this town somewhere sometime where dying was forbidden. Naturally everybody still died, but we try the craziest things to prevent it (as proven by stating it in the law "Thy are forbidden to die").

The main thing, I guess, is that you just should try and live life the happiest you can. You just have to try to outlive all the ups, and certainly all the downs, and just try to be. Recently the mother of my aunt died and all that basically remains in life is the stuff you've left behind. She had an almighty stamps collection and we (my dad, mom, sis and I) are at the moment snooping through it all (it isn't all as organised as hoped for). And the things you find are somewhat mesmerizing. A lot of stamps, but also some old pictures (I'll naturally return to my aunt, but still. Look at those pictures!), and some food stamps they've used during the second world war and after (which indeed proves that people have died -unnecessarily- in the past).


We move on, but never really forget. Or atleast, try not to.

Love,
Dominique