I've been pondering something all day today. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to articulate my thoughts very well, but I guess I'll have to try. I may come off sounding somewhat un-PC, or worse, but I want to be honest and candid and I think I come from a good place.
It didn't take long yesterday, as people posted their feelings about the terrorist attacks in Paris, and started to change their profile pictures to the colors of the French flag, for the memes to appear, and for individuals to begin making their case; admonishing us, wondering where was our grief and outrage over the attack in Beirut just one day before? Or for the hundreds of innocent victims of the Russian airliner, blown up by ISIS on their way home from vacation? Baghdad, Syria, on and on... Where were their flags on our Facebook newsfeed?
Compelling arguments. At first, I chided myself a little. "Where is my outrage? Where is my grief?" Almost protectively, I began to dial back my empathy for Paris just a little bit. Do you know what I mean? It was as if I had to save some of my outrage and grief for all those others.
Then it began to dawn on me that if anything is inappropriate for this day, this time, it is that.
It seems to me that every single one of those tiny gestures, each profile picture tinted bleu blanc et rouge, every eloquently composed comment or simple "pray for Paris" indeed amounts to a type of prayer. A tidal wave of good intentions, of sympathy and empathy. Is there anything really wrong with that? Do we really need to dial it back at all?
Intellectually, one can begin to argue about the fact that six corporations control 90% of the media, and therefore they control not only how we receive information, but what information we receive in the first place. I for one, had never even heard about the twin suicide attacks which had taken place in Beirut just one day before Paris. How can I react at all to something I know nothing about? But is this really the discussion we need to be having right now? Should the names on our lips right now be "Time Warner" or "Viacom"? No. They should be Nohemi Gonzalez, or 33-year-old Aurelie De Peretti, or the dozens of other nameless, faceless victims: kids out for a concert, or an old, somewhat surly married couple drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes at a sidewalk café. Lets think of them, at least for today. It could have been us.
Then, I began to really examine myself, and I asked myself the question, "If I had indeed known about the attacks in Beirut, would I have felt as strongly about it as I do about Paris?" Would I? Probably not. And it's hard for me to answer that way, because I like to think of myself as someone who takes people as people, regardless of what they look like or where they're from. Obviously, I am imperfect in that goal.
I think a part of it has to do with familiarity. It is easier, I think, for humans to relate emotionally with things which are familiar to them. I have been to Paris; I spent my 50th birthday there at a restaurant in the Marais. But even people who have never been to Paris, I would venture, have a picture of it in their minds: the Eiffel Tower, sandstone buildings lining wide boulevards, lovers embracing on the banks of the Seine in autumn. The same, sadly, cannot be said for Beirut. Ask me to draw a mental picture of Beirut, and to be perfectly honest, all I see is bombed-out buildings. That's probably awful and it's probably not right, but it's the way that it is. 
But familiarity goes to more than just knowing what a place looks like, or what the people who live there look like. We begin to think about values. The big ones, like Freedom. Freedom to think for ourselves, to express ourselves freely, to love whom we choose and worship as we see fit. In this respect, the French are our close brothers. And who doesn't grieve for a brother?
In some ways, I think that we in the West feel a bit indignant, for lack of a better word, when the battle spills over and ends up being waged on our own streets. Now, this is where I can seem way more un-PC than I intend to, but I don't know how else to explain my thoughts. It's almost as if the Arab world is going through an evolutionary process right now. They are in the midst of determining which way their culture will go: towards so-called "Western" values of individual freedom and secular government, or towards theocracy and conformity to a religious ideal. They're killing one another over it, and I for one can do little except wait and hope that love will win and that history will eventually unfold the way it ought to. It's almost as if we in the West feel like we've already had these growing pains. We've fought these battles already, in the brutal Middle Ages, in 1776, at Gettysburg, Omaha Beach, and at the Bastille in Paris. We get angry and resentful when their fight spills over into cities and against values for which plenty of blood has already been spilled. 
Fucking bastards, we think. And we circle the wagons, at least for a time.
So, some time later, when I'm walking the dog and my mind is wandering, I will think about that again. I will be angry that information is owned. I will try to work on my own imperfect humanity, and remind myself that the world is "falling apart in all corners
and not simply in the towers and cafés we find so familiar."
But for today I will remember the man on the sidewalk, and the two towers in Manhattan, and someone just like me who won't have a husband snoring beside him tonight. I will wrap myself in the flag of France and grieve for them.