Immediately after the thought of writing something about the last week tragedy appeared in my head, I felt ashamed of myself. Am I entitled to write? Can anyone extract something from my learning? Am I not selfish by populating the online space in these moments?
I do not have a clear answer. I anyhow chose to confess in a way, right here and right now.
I also do not know why I did not have the same feelings when other tragedies occurred in Romania. The accident in Muntenegru, the fire on Giulesti hospital, the explosion in Mihailesti. Maybe it was self-preservation, maybe I did not identify myself, if I can use this verb, with those tragedies. It’s not clear for me. What’s obviously is that the fire from Colectiv club took me out of my day-to-day life. Not totally, I do not see a point in me showing off right now. I continued to live my life, I went into a plane, I took my child to school, we laughed together, we prepared dinner. But I feel from the bottom of my heart that I cannot let this awful tragedy just going away without contributing with a personal change. With public and personal consequences.
DO NOT FORGET! I keep repeating these words to me because I am afraid that I will still forget, just as I forgot many other important things during the years. They initially inspired me, but later I lost them in my hurry to just exist. They dissipated themselves among my little dramas. They vanished, they were forgotten.
Today I wish that I never forget how meaningless are my day-to-day discontents. The ones that I bloat alone and I transform them in wild balloons that in the end explode by themselves and disappear. Just because I allow them to exist, I become blind when it’s about the essential things in life and I transform my existence in something even smaller than it should be. I lose my time and my energy with these little dramas, instead of contributing to something bigger than myself. I consciously choose to waste my time on little things instead of using the love and the good there is inside me since I was born. I floundered daily in my anonymous sadness instead of breaking the bubble in which I hided in order to do something good, to contribute, to help, to achieve something concrete. You cannot keep looking for meaning in life when everything is just there around you, waiting for you to open your eyes.
Today I wish that I never forget the evil I generate when I choose to ignore what’s not ok around me. Anywhere I live on this planet, Romania or Nederland. Like when I pretend I don’t see a person being bullied or harmed on the street just because I am afraid or because it takes me out of my comfort zone. Like when I do not stop to help a person in need just because somebody else will do it. Like when I ignore the queue in a public hospital in Romania just because it happens that I know the doctor and my time is more important than the other ones time. Like when I choose to overtake the cars stopped at the traffic light just because otherwise I will be late for some important meeting. I can continue with examples like this for another two pages. Things that I did so far by telling myself that I cannot change the world. That I do not want to be a Don Quijote, fighting against things that everybody do. And? What’s my gain? I am safe, but alone and useless.
If I compare myself with the families of the people that died or with the injured ones that are suffering in the hospitals, my words are little and selfish. If I look at my life since now, these words become important and I wish that I never forget them.
DO NOT FORGET!
On October 30th, 2015, a fire in Colectiv Club in Bucharest killed 32 people and injured another 179, from which 90 are severely injured. The fire, the worst such incident in Romania in the last 20 years, occurred during a free concert performed by the heavy metal band Goodbye to Gravity to celebrate the release of their new album Mantras of War. The band’s pyrotechnics, consisting of sparkler firework candles, ignited the club’s flammable polyurethane acoustic foam, and the fire spread rapidly. Most of the victims were poisoned by toxins released from the burning foam. Protests over the deaths led to the resignation of Prime Minister Victor Ponta and his government.
huliganii 