In a few days, i'm going to run...quite far, because I want to. Today, a lot of people ran...because they had to. They literally ran for their lives.
Once again, my city was the target of fear, of horror, and of cowards. I wish I could say this is a rarity in the world, or at least in my country, but sadly, it is becoming an all to common occurrence, one which I fear will become so common, it will one day be considered, "blase`", and carelessly forgotten. It is at that moment, one that I hope never happens, that we will have truly given into fear and terror.
We need to be shocked, scarred and frightened. We should not take this, or ANY attack lightly and, "carry on with our lives" as if nothing happened. People, innocent, good people died today. Innocent, good people died a month ago, nearly 60 of them, and has anything, anything at all changed? No. Will anything change after today? I hope so, but probably not, and if it does, I fear it will unjustly target those of a different religion and skin color.
Terror...fear...it does not have a color. It has a mission. To hurt, kill and destroy. You cannot uniformly associate one group of people into that realm. It is xenophobic, racist, and simply put...not fair. We need to be better than that. We need to learn how to be kind, how to be inclusive, how to adapt and we just need to learn....how to learn.
That's one way to fight this. We should not act wholly on our fears. Yes, we need to be cognizant of them, to acknowledge that they exist, but to let common sense and thoughtfulness take a side in our thought processes as well.
I'm still running, not from fear, but in spite of it. So this Sunday, at 11am, I'm going to tighten my laces and run 26.2 miles. Sure, i'm scared. Of falling, going too slow, my legs giving out, getting a sock wedgie, or having Gatorade go down my nose(I don't have the best run/drink aim), but I won't let that deter me from going out there and kicking ass.