Vive la France. And the rest of the world too.

Watching the appalling news unfold in one of the seats of western culture last night and this morning was heartbreaking on countless levels. No one could bear witness, from near or far, to all the awfulness and not be horrified, not be frustrated, not be infuriated, not be saddened.

What happened in Paris last night was a tragedy. What happened in Paris in January, with the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish market, was a tragedy.

But while we all pray for Paris, whatever praying means to each of us, we must, we must, we must remember that what happened in the beautiful city where many of us reveled and explored was only the latest of horrific events this week.

This. Week.

Beirut. 40 people killed. Suicide bomber at a funeral in Baghdad. Can we spare some of our thoughts and prayers for those people too?

Can we keep in our thoughts the millions of migrants fleeing atrocities in their home countries, only to find they have no where to go. All of that will only get worse now, while all of the west will clamp down on borders and goodwill for the countless humans who happen to have had the poor luck to be born in places that have become the frontline of this formless, unwinnable war that is affecting all of us.

This is the new normal. 

Platitudes are comforting to those who express them. They make us feel slightly less helpless. I am such a person who has expressed such platitudes. I have extended my heartfelt condolences and offered my thoughts. We can all turn our Facebook profiles pictures red, white and blue, but what does that accomplish?

Yes, we are sad.  We are all angry. We all feel helpless. And that counts for a lot, this unity of feeling. But it is, in itself, a platitude. Because it’s only passing time until we forget about all this ugliness.

We’ll forget about the struggle of refugees and migrants. We’ll forget about the people who live under the kind of terror Paris experienced last night every single day. We’ll go about our lives in relative comfort and tsk at the news and shake our heads and acknowledge, rightly, how sad it all is. 

But that will all fade, and we’ll forget—until there’s another horrible attack on another visible western target.

We can all agree ISIS is pure and unadulterated evil. 

But to those who are determined to unilaterally hate Muslims, hate migrants, to those who gleefully embrace their xenophobia and hug their guns close and make categorical generalizations about people based on the barest superficial information—you are part of the problem.

So, yes, let’s be sad. There is so much to mourn.

But let’s also be determined to love each other. To assume the good intentions of our fellow humans. To treat those who do us harm as outliers instead of indicators. Let’s remember that there are more of us who are good than who are not. Even if at times like this, that’s really hard to believe, it’s still true.

It’s the only way the new normal will maybe someday stop feeling so fucking normal.