Double Tragedy

Did anyone see last weekend coming the way it did? It started off in an explosive way – and I mean it in every sense of the word – when a gunman carried out twin terror attacks in Norway. My timeline had started flooding about the possibility of Al-Qaeda on Friday evening but I was oblivious until a few hours later when I woke up Saturday morning. Then it turned out that the gunman was actually a white Christian Conservative Norwegian. Wow, this was beginning to sound like Oklahoma City all over again.

In case you somehow missed the news, I’ll just sum it up briefly: Anders Behring Breivik has admitted to carrying out a bombing in Oslo (fortunately it was a holiday in Norway on Friday so the casualties were small) and a massacre on an island youth camp in which at least 93 people had died. And get this: he spent nine years planning Friday’s atrocity and three years writing his manifesto which he emailed to 5,700 people before he detonated a 500-kg bomb in Oslo. He even has an online journal documenting the steps he’s taken.

Then the world was rocked by the death of Amy Winehouse, whose cause of death is still unknown. She was a gifted singer who wrestled with her demons but didn’t manage to overcome them. They told her to go to Rehab but she said, ‘No, no, no’ because ‘You Know I’m No Good’. And so a life was cut in its prime, a life that was lived with self-destruction.

To me, it’s sad that while some promising people lost their lives unwillingly to a madman, some others choose to waste their lives through bad choices.

We all have our own demons. I’m sure we all have our own insecurities (I’ll be the first to admit that I suffer from the occasional bout of insecurity myself) because we’re not perfect. We’re just humans, prone to making errors and mistakes. What we do have is a duty to live our lives to the fullest and we owe it to ourselves and to God for making the most out of our short stint here on earth. And when I say living your life to the fullest, I also mean living it healthily by making the right food choices and not to over-indulge in food that will only cause you health problems later on. Get help if you’re troubled and help others who are. I’m sure we have our own share of caring family members, relatives and friends who are only too happy to help us (not to be mistaken with busybody nosy parkers who rejoice when you’re down and care naught about helping). If you don’t have any, get professional help: psychologists, psychoanalysts, voluntary counsellors, anybody. Of course, be careful who you befriend – as in the case of Amy, it was her former husband who led her through the world of addiction. In fact – and I can attest to this – keeping a diary and an online journal (not like Mr Breivik’s though) or a blog will also help you to express yourself: I know they help me a lot as they enable me to voice out myself.

And society really should do something about people with addiction (alcohol, drugs, over-eating) instead of mocking them from afar or watching them spiral down their path of self-destruction. Society should also try to do something about people who have dangerous obsession and phobia like Mr Breivik (although there are countries which encourage and promote hatred and fear among the citizens).

P.S. There are many other tragedies in this world that happen every day and not just weekend. My omission of them here doesn’t mean they are any less or more important than the above.