Optimism, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the meanness of the world

Recently, I've been filled with a renewed sense of optimism, for no reason at all, just "natural as the weather in this moody sky today" as sang Joni Mitchell about melancholy. I was wondering: should I worry? Didn't need to. This fragile feeling of lightness has been drowned by "the news". Ukraine, Gaza, day after day more horrors piling up. Not that I've been personally affected, no one I know has been killed or blown to bits in the recent events. It's just that I almost feel in my bones the pain and despair of all those people, like waves of negative energy travelling through space. I am not a Jedi, not even a very powerless one but it makes me think of Obi-Wan Kenobi experiencing the destruction of the planet Alderaan by the DeathStar.

"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."


On Earth, again and again.