In October 2023, you had to explain that for an act of violence to qualify as war, the parties involved need to have comparable power and culpability. Today, you are not expected to go on a monologue about this, everyone has seen the video of a headless baby in Rafah.

I inform my prayers of the concept of justice because it may not be possible to live on this planet without hope. But they almost always revolt. Complicated. This issue was complicated.

Privileged people, educated and safe from the horrors of the world, said that it was not proper for them to comment on Palestine because they did not know enough about the ‘conflict’. I was there, I looked them in the eye. They said it without blinking.

These people finally seem to have collected whatever information they were looking for, and while there are bigger things to discuss than how late they are, this remains a concerning example of ignorance. But more than that, a pattern.

Indifference, like empathy, becomes stronger with practice. So, you have to wonder, and shudder at the thought of the atrocities a person must have disregarded before they found it okay to sleep peacefully at night, knowing that parents somewhere are holding charred bodies of their children.

This is why you need to care when your country ostracizes a community. This is why you have got to act when something bad happens in your city. This is the reason why you check up on your neighbors. For it becomes a habit over time, potentially a life-saving habit.

Unfortunately, we haven’t worked on it enough. There is a point of no return and humanity stands miles on the far side. And there are no Gods to blame for it.

Coming back to Palestine, I am wary of taking the moral high ground. The violence didn’t affect my existence beyond a point, either. When it should have.

In the last few months, I have gone to parties, I have traveled, I have dreamed. 

Life goes on. Sometimes, it goes on beyond the acceptable limit.