As humans and particularly as journalists, we often try to look for slivers of light in the darkest of times to insulate ourselves against the negative emotions that can result from observing and chronicling moments so horrible they surpass our own ability to rationalize and process them.

It is becoming profoundly more difficult to find any light in events occurring throughout the world at the moment, however.

A bloody stalemate war rages on in Ukraine, with no feasible end in sight for a conflict sparked by a dictatorial madman. In the blood-soaked sand of the Middle East, a mass casualty terrorist event not seen in similar scope since the destruction of the Twin Towers over 20 years ago has redefined suffering for a new generation of Palestinian and Israeli civilians.

Here at home, we seem constantly on the verge of collapse into a state of pseudo Civil War between extreme factions of our once semi-functional governmental system. Our collective federal representatives seem about as likely to provide clarity and a clear path forward towards resolving these global conflicts as the sun is likely to rise in the West and set in the East tomorrow.

We’re not qualified to make a sweeping political assessment of the situation in Ukraine no more than we are to comment on the immensely complex intricacies that led up to the carnage in Israel and, as a result, in Gaza, where a humanitarian crisis of nearly immeasurable scale is already reaching a boiling point.

What we are qualified to comment on is our collective disappointment that in the year 2023, we continue to seem intent as a species to violently ricochet around the same carousel ride that humans have been stuck on since we emerged from caves and found other people to fight with for things like food, shelter, and water.

There are seemingly no limits to how we find ways to wedge ourselves against one another, find ways to hate one another, and ultimately find ways to snuff out the only universal thing we share with one another; a precious, fragile life force that can end as suddenly and chaotically as it begins.

While there is not enough space in the collective libraries of the world to tackle this problem from a scholarly angle — one that takes into the infinite number of perspectives and billions of tidbits of context required to understand something as complex as the ceaseless persistence of war among our genetically identical fellow primates — we feel it necessary to simply put on record, and into the collective ether of consciousness, one more beleaguered and helpless prayer for safety to those experiencing these life or death events each day.

Perhaps it is up to every able individual to find and spread their own light when none appears to shine.