I’m having a hard time writing about makeup.  Or fashion.  Or luxury travel.  Especially that.  Because that gorgeous 5 star hotel on the beach (or in the middle of the city) is the perfect way to spend your vacation unless someone gets into a semi loaded with automatic weapons and drives into a crowd enjoying the evening fireworks display.  The hottest new nightclub is the perfect place to unwind and blow off some steam after work unless someone walks in with a machine gun and open fires on the dancing crowd.  That recipe I told you about is the perfect thing to cook for your visiting family and friends, unless you’re on your way the the grocery store and you’re black and someone in a uniform is a afraid of you so they shoot you.  Because you’re black and trying to get groceries.  Those in-season pleats and florals are the perfect look to wear to that concert, unless someone walks into the show strapped with a bomb and blows up half the crowd.

WHAT are we DOING?

I’ve been working for 3 months on a jewelry line that’s supposed to launch tomorrow.  Who the hell cares about jewelry right now?  I did a photoshoot two days ago with another blogger friend of mine for a big travel/packing post, I’m styling a shoot for a conde naste event next weekend, we have backlogs of posts about home decor and shoes and blah blah blah blah BLAH.  …What are we DOING?

Last night I went to a sports bar where CNN was on almost every TV broadcasting live from Nice— but everyone there avoided it, including me.  I drank my vodka tonic and played pool and chatted to my friends and NO ONE in that bar looked at the televisions around them for longer than a glance.  No one wants to deal with it.  Because HOW CAN WE?  The helplessness is overwhelming. Is there a wake-up point?  What has to happen for us to get off our apathetic asses and stop posting sentimental square pictures with quotes on them as our way of feeling connected or grieving during a tragedy?  It’s not enough.  A week from now we’re all going to be on about our business because (the) life (that still exists) has to go on.  We’re like a bunch of fucking ostriches.

I’ll tell you what the answer isn’t.  The answer is not “feel bad, be confused, get distracted by all the things you need to get done, still feel bad, say ‘what is the world coming to?’ with friends over oysters and martinis, feel scared, try to tell yourself ‘it’s not going to happen to me’ and continue until you numb it all out and it seems like it’s going away.”

It’s NOT going away.  It’s not fucking going away.  It’s NOT GOING AWAY.  IT’S.  NOT.  GOING.  AWAY.  IT’S NOT GOING AWAY!

So what do we do?

We can’t ignore it but we can’t live in fear, everyone can’t get on a plane and find a mess to clean up, not everyone can drop their lives to start a non-profit focused on educating young recruit-targets for terrorism, and you can’t possibly predict attacks of any sort so immediate prevention isn’t a real option, nor are you associated in any way with the kind of people who do attack… so what do you do?  What can we actually do?  I don’t mean to discount the incredible benefits of social media.  I think huge strides have been made for girls globally, #blacklivesmatter is crucial, awareness for all sorts of causes has been brought to global spotlight because of the positive side of social media crowd-mentality.  It is truly wonderful to see how many people agree on these things and make their voices heard.  I truly love that.  But is it really enough?  Is that all we can do— POST something??

It seems to me we have three options: Be apathetic, be afraid (ostrich), or pray.

I literally do not care what religion you are (or are not).  Maybe you’re agnostic.  If you’re atheist, I don’t know what to tell you- maybe you have a different option that I haven’t thought of here.  But there has to be a reason why millions of people say “prayer works”.  Some say it’s the least you can do, I think it’s one of the most powerful things you can do but if that’s not your bag right now I’m not sweating it.  My point is that we, the public, are at a dead-end.  If there is nothing else you can do— you CAN pray.  You can wake up 20 minutes early in the morning and sit up in bed and say “Hey God, I don’t know if you’re out there, but we’re pretty fucked up down here and I believe if you are real that you could really help us.  Please help us.  Please help us.”  You can ask for wisdom.  You can ask for truth to be revealed.  You can ask for God to help you know how you can make a difference in your own community.

I mean, are we actually ready to live sacrificially or what?  What if by sacrificing 20 minutes of extra sleep to pray— your whole world changes?  What if by sacrificing 4 of the meals where you eat out every month and sending the money to support an organization educating at-risk teens— their whole world changes?  Whatever your level of wealth and power, it comes with an ability to live sacrificially that is proportional. (agh that could start a whole other discussion, but I won’t right now).

If it’s literally the least you can do- Pray.  If it’s the most you can do- Pray.  Pray constantly.  Live and love and be grateful and have joy and don’t live in fear and anguish, but be aware all the time and acknowledge that awareness by asking for help- by praying.  Even if you don’t believe in God… on the off chance you’re wrong, and for the sake of doing something… can you just do it anyway?

We’re in dire straights on planet earth right now.  It may be the only real thing we can do.