If only we all shared the thoughts on life of AIMN reader Richard O’Brien, what a much better world this will be.

Beyond expressing my deepest sadness, it is not my place to speak for the people of Paris, or Beirut, or the countless other places where people have died for someone else’s cause of late. Many others will use these sad events to promote many different agendas, for many different causes. For the most part they are different sides to the same dice, where no matter what number you roll, someone ends up paying for it.

As I see it the world is divided. That divide runs through all beliefs, religious and not. It is a divide that runs through all countries, cities, towns, even families. The rich and the poor, the Left and the Right. It is a divide between those who choose to hate, and those who choose to love.

Right now we are all sharing a planet with 7.3 billion other people, dependent on one of trillions of suns in one of billions of galaxies. We’re still here because the people who choose to love outnumber the people who choose to hate by many to one.

You may not change the world in any noticeable way if you choose to love, and the people who choose to hate won’t go away. But we’re only on this planet for a relatively short time, and I guarantee you, if you choose to love you’ll enjoy that time more, and hurt less people doing it.