CAN UKRAINE MAKE PEOPLE BETTER?
THIS IS A QUESTION THAT MAY sound weird, but 'weird' is just a matter of point of view. I want to do something practical here, so I will avoid going into so many details of our suffering again. More than two years, everything is so obvious that it seems we already have exhausted things to write about Ukraine.
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If you're reading this, you're more than aware of the scale and the nature of the pain Ukrainians in general are undergoing. My personal case is nothing different from millions. Family, displacement, homelessness, joblessness, my issues are everyone's issues.Â
I never thought I'm someone special for anything and the fact of being Ukrainian just makes me more ordinary. If anything, special by being part of a special people, not more than that.
My goal as a writer is always to write about you, not me. You who are reading me right now. Forget Viktor for a while, forget Ukraine, forget war. Let's focus on your heart, your mind. What if Ukraine could be the excuse to make you a better person?
It's necessary that you become a better person every time you read or watch something about Ukraine. Saying 'better' maybe sounds relative, let's say 'more human', which I think it could have an interchangeable meaning.
It's necessary because we must find something good from the situation we are immersed in for two years and no one knows how much time more. We all are immersed, not only because it's a fight for our shared values of justice and democracy, but because we have developed a connection.
This connection means that you are living this war with us everyday. You don't hear the missiles, but you can feel our pain, our suffering, our tears. How many times could we develop this dimension of empathy with people who live oceans and continents away from us?
So it's already happening. Empathy, the faculty of understanding and sharing the feelings, thoughts, and perspectives of another human being, is a clear indication that we are becoming not less than 'more human.' Putting ourselves in someone else's shoes, such a hard thing to do these days when we are so stimulated to privilege our individualities.
Anyway, we need to go further. We need to explore all our capacity of exercising compassion, solidarity, sensitivity, and caring towards people in general. Including not only those we love and care about, but the hardest part, with those who we dislike. Those who think differently from us. Those who sometimes say or practice things that hurt us.
I don't want to mean a spirit of 'blind forgiveness.' Maybe we don't even need to forgive someone, but only establish some understanding, some common grounds. An environment defined by respect and serenity.
If Ukraine is somehow helping you to be a better person, this war will not be in vain.
Because this absurd war is also caused by lack of solidarity, lack of empathy. Lack of humanity.
And be sure that the force of the increased humanity you carry inside yourself now makes you a better person as well as an important actor of turning this world into a better world.
Until the day that no war will take place again.Â
Thanks to you, this process is underway.
🔖 More than a newsletter, this is a community. We divide our lives, share emotions and establish a connection that has been amazing to me and comforting at the hardest times. I hope to reach you with an inspiring content and make at least a little difference in your perceptions about Ukraine.
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📖 Last winter, I’ve also written a book called ‘The Divine Comedian: Ukraine’s Journey Through Hell, Purgatory, And Paradise’. If you still haven’t read it, I welcome you to take a look and give me your opinion. It is available for free downloading in PDF and Kindle formats: