We had a bomb threat at school today. I Googled bomb alarm, I wasn’t sure that was the right way to put it. In the first four search results, I noticed only one of them was about bomb building, the other three were defusion how to-s.
That’s a happy observation.
Sitting in the back row, it took me a while to get to the front door. During the entire way there (some mere seconds, but time is oh-so-relative), I kept imagining the bomb explosion. I couldn’t stop visualizing that moment.
My body started obeying my get ready orders, it became stiff and compact, set, as if preparing your body for a bomb explosion makes any sense at all.
I thought of the noise it would make as it exploded. Imagining us, the students, dying, alive as well, but not quite, we hadn’t “had the real bomb yet,” but the explosion was “coming upon us” any moment now.
I kept rushing to the door, a few mere seconds and an eternity later.
As psychology students, we frequently talked about cultural backgrounds and how important they are when examining a patient’s situation or dreams.
Legend says our minister of defense got a message from Isis, right after Paris bombings. It said: “You’re next.”
If this was just any day, I would’ve probably thought the threat came from a desperate student (or a brave one, depending on how you see it), dreading a presentation, exam, or what have you, but as Depeche Mode put it, not tonight.
Have you seen the movie “The Giver”?
In an emotion-less, rule-filled, worldwide community, memories were not “open to” the public. A single person guarded every single memory since the beginning of time.
When he finally got granted access, Jonas got to feel all these memories, or remember all these feelings: sled rides, snow, music, laughter, dancing, love. Later, inevitably, terror and wars and hunger. Going against the rules which stated citizens weren’t to experience neither pain nor happiness, the receiver made a decision.
Wars and hunger and pain were a risk worth taking to enjoy life- with music, dance, humor, love. According to him, the world deserved this abundance.
He delivered it to them, despite all the difficulties he faced trying to do so.
I’d do the same.
I would take bombings, terrors, wars, accidents, life-threatening diseases, and deaths. I’do it for the sun, love, feelings of joy for no reason or huge reasons, the sea, climbing on top of a mountain, sunsets, sunrises, to continue feeling what I feel for my loved ones, for flowers, for my cat, and for videos of babies trying a lemon for the first time. In a heartbeat.