Be a Questioner.

We're barely through half of the week and I've already been told that three specific people are dead.
The news of David Bowie's and Alan Rickman's death echoed through all the social medias and newspaper, where I had the opportunity to read some touching words about their lives, and go through their work once again. It's kind of funny how one's end allows to put everything else into perspective, like a tiny little dot at the end of a sentence. If you think about it, it's only when a sentence ends that you can really get its whole meaning.
The last news was my mom telling me about one neighbor that decided to take its life. I don't didn't really know him well enough to be sad about the time we could've spent together, but he was one of us, I met him on the street, hello-ed him and knew a bit about his life. It's hard to believe that someone who used to smile at you decided to jump off a cliff.
Despite them being now all together in someplace new, fun and peaceful, two struggled against the awful beast that cancer is, and the other surely struggled against something as scary and as invisible as a tumor but perhaps didn't have all the necessary support to fight it and overcome it. Whereas the battle against cancer is in most cases ineffective and pointless (I fully support cancer research, the only chance we have to change these two horrific adjectives), I believe that depression or whatever could bring someone to suicide can be cured and because of this possible positive ending should be discussed more overtly and honestly.
I decided to write not because these news sparkled the need to start an awareness campaign on cancer or suicide, but rather because I found myself crushed under these three broken lives and that made me think of all the lives that break around the world as we speak. I now feel belittled and powerless: why hasn't anyone figured out what was in that boy's head? What about his jump in the void, what did he think mid-air, what if he regretted it and the only thing he needed was someone by his side talking him out of it before it was too late?
Of course, as every sentence has its full point, life ends in death, but lives that vanish without excuse are just far too many and in this exact moment I can feel the awful silence that probably fills so many homes right now.
This made me think about the Paris shooting, when everyone was so saddened and angry and startled but then very determined to take vengeance on those who did bad (thus keeping the circle of death stupidly alive). Everything resonates louder if nearer, and it's funny how - despite the great network we have today around the world - the farthest still mean the quieter. What happened in Paris is what happens in the Middle East every day, one city a day. Cancer fighters are all around the world, moms and dads and sons and granddaughters. Depression might be hiding behind every smile you receive.

You can never know what is going on inside someone else's mind: be kind to one another, everyone is going through his own struggle and doesn't deserve unkind words.
You never fully know someone's history: try to figure out at least three scenarios before you judge someone and instead of pointing fingers try to provide help.
There are greater causes in the world than your cup of coffee or your daily donut, causes that would truly benefit from your money, causes that with a little more money could be life-changing.
What I preach is the art of questioning: only those who never stop questioning themselves and the world surrounding them can improve their and other's lives.

Be a Questioner.