Terrorist Strike (Tero 攻撃)

Unfortunately for what is becoming a disheartening frequent occurrence, terror struck again on Friday the 13th (11/13/15) in France, where terrorist attacks throughout Paris left more than 150 people dead. It was just a senseless loss of innocent human beings carried about apparently by ISIS, a terrorist organization whose purpose seems to be exactly that, of killing innocent human beings, no matter how many of its own members it loses. These terrorist attacks (Tero Kougeki in Japanese) are becoming a big problem for myself and others around the world and sometimes I really need to break out of own little naive bubble (full of lefthanded throwing of dodgeballs, fantasy baseball, Japanese dramas, and spelling bees) to see the bigger picture of the biggest problem the world and humankind faces today. 

Unfortunately, with Sept. 11, 2001 being the beginning of my teenage years (I was 14 then) my adolescence to early adulthood has been shaped by an era of terrorist attacks, random violence, and senseless killings (not to say there weren't any terrorist attacks before, but 9-11 seems unfortunately like the gateway of all these events. The problem is that these aren't nations that represent a group of people who more or less have to act accountably for its own citizens or act somewhat rationally, to think like humans. This organization, for as much as it preaches that it should the world power and that it is helping the world in some screwed-up thinking, does not think rationally. I think most human beings agree in principle to be somewhat decent to each other, to attack only if one has been attacked by others, to resort to violence only in extreme measures and then only in a war scenario of soldier against soldier, to adhere to basic war principles like fighting face to face. This organization strikes at innocent people who just happen to be going to a music concert or a sports stadium or a Cambodian restaurant after a long work week or who happen to live in a country that ISIS doesn't deem to be one of its allies and thus needs to be taken down. I have a vague understanding that some of the terrorists believe that if they die for their cause they will be rewarded with 76 virgins, but that kind of thinking just seems wrongheaded and totally irrational. Even if one were to be a devout follower of a religion like that since birth inasmuch as to be brainwashed, it seems that at some point human instinct, compassion, morality, and some sort of ethical values would kick in to say, "that's not OK to kill all these people even if my religion dictates it, even if other people tell me I have to do that." It's just inconceivable to me that so many people as to make an organization would be so wrong-headed to justify these actions. (this may be me being naive and not believing there's true evil in the world or that human beings are born with an innate ability to feel compassion, to want to feel what it's like in other people's shoes, to forgive even if they believe they have been wronged so horribly as to realize that what matters is how you deal with what's already happened, how you move forward. 

I don't normally pray very much, and I don't know how effective it is given that I don't believe in a specific religion or adhere to anything, but I will go to bed tonight and on subsequent nights hoping that whatever I can do to sacrifice in my own life can be used to correct the wrongness of what these terrorist individuals' beliefs. Even if one of them who have been tasked with these horrible deeds can somehow see the evils of their ways and refuse to carry out their task, it will have been worth it for me to lose something I value a lot ( like my fantasy baseball team, for instance). In all seriousness, I really hope somehow I can influence the world we live in for the good in any way I can. 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan