It is a strange to feel your heart strings tugged for people half way around the world merely due to familiarity with a place and their people. Does Paris hit me in the feels harder than Beirut? Yes, because I’ve been there, spent weeks wandering the streets and been past some of those places where these attacks happened. Does Beirut affect me? Not so much, I’ve never been there, I am unfamiliar with these spaces and these people and their culture. But this doesn’t mean I feel those lives lost in Beirut or Kenya or anywhere else, are less valuable.
And I’m tired of being made to feeling like a heartless baggage because I feel a stronger affinity for the Parisians than these other victims.
I felt shock and empathy for people affected by severe flooding in Calgary thinking, ‘I was just there last week, how can this be happening?’. Same, when I learned of the massive Tiajin warehouse explosions near Beijing – we had just been there, intermingled with the people and experienced their culture. So yes, our hearts went out to them in a more emotional and tangible way than just intellectually absorbing information about attacks in Kenya or Beirut.
And to be totally honest, I am glad our brains censor and prioritise emotional expenditure in this way – else we would be constantly overwhelmed by sensations of grief and loss and powerlessness.