Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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A darker and stranger place

Some people I love live in Bruxelles.
As some live in Paris, in Ankara, in New York.
In London, in Rome.
I have friends and loved ones in a number of places, all over the globe – I am lucky like that. And as the situation grows more confused, I sometimes wonder if I am doing anything to help. Then, about fifteen minutes ago, I read this…

    Year by year, the world is turning into a darker and stranger place than any of us could want.
Somewhere, there is always a war.
Somewhere, there is always the threat of an act of terrorism.
Somewhere, there is always a woman or a child in peril.
Nature itself delivers devastating tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes.
In the light of this onslaught of shadows, is it naïve to try to shine a little light into the darkness? After all, these stories are only small flashlights of prose and who knows how long their batteries will last?
I don’t know. But naïve or not, I will continue to do so for as long as I can find the stories, or for as long as they find me.
I’m a writer. And this is what I do. This is the only thing I do that has potential to shine a little further than my immediate surroundings.
So these stories are important — to me, at least. Each one is a little candle held up to the dark of night, trying to illuminate the hope for a better world where we all respect and care for each other.
(Charles De Lint, introduction to Triskell Tales 2)

Sounds like a plan to me.
Keep writing.