Trust

So…is this it?

Is what it?

I literally just sit down at my laptop and launch forth into what ever is on my mind?

Isn’t that what you were doing before?

It was kind of more planned before, more structured, but then it was getting a bit dull…

So shut up and start making it great again!!

I’ll try.

The Doctor

WARNING: this post contains spoilers from the BBC Doctor Who episode broadcast on 21st November 2015. If you do not wish to have that episode ruined, do not read below!

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I love Doctor Who.

Ok, I’m not the biggest Whovian in the world. I haven’t seen every single episode. Heck, I don’t even know half the Doctors who have graced the Tardis with their presence.

But The Doctor, whizzing around space and time in his futuristic time-travelling Tardis is so much more than just a “hero”.

He’s not just a Batman or a Superman, looking to save the world with brute force with his fancy superpowers.

He’s not just a Sherlock or Poirot, looking to solve the ununravelable web of mystery that faces him from week to week.

He’s so much more than that.

He symbolises patience, compassion, resilience, determination, righteous indignation and hope.

Hope is what we need in the world.

In the latest episode there was yet another moving dialogue between Clara and The Doctor. Maybe I’m just a sucker for their emotional moments. Or maybe I just appreciate good literature.

Here’s where the spoiler comes in.

Clara is about to leave The Doctor. For good. The Doctor is going to be heavily affected. He’s going to be massively angry, and upset, and incensed, and furious, and heartbroken. He might even be a bit depressed.

He’s failed. His one and only job was to protect Clara and he failed. She’s going. She’s leaving him, the one person who’s accompanied him through so much, yet another casualty as a result of his incompetence. What a bloody great Doctor he is.

Clara: You. You listen to me. You’re gonna be alone now, and you’re very bad at that. You’re gonna be furious and you’re gonna be sad, but listen to me. Don’t let this change you. No – listen. Whatever happens next…wherever she is sending you, I know what you’re capable of. You don’t be a warrior. Promise me. Be a Doctor.

The Doctor: What’s the point of being a Doctor if I can’t cure…

Clara: Heal yourself. You have to. You can’t let this turn you into a monster. So…I’m not asking you for a promise. I’m giving you an order. You will not insult my memory. There will be no revenge. I will die, and no one else, here or anywhere, will suffer.

The Doctor: What about me?

Clara: If there was something I could do about that, I would. I guess we’re both just going to have to be brave.

When we go through a bad time in life, especially when we feel that something utterly wrong has happened to something we value, someone we love (just look at Paris last week), the natural human – and perhaps even alien… – reaction is to seek revenge.

They need to know how we’ve been affected. They need to experience their actions. They need to realise what they’ve done.

All this anger and hatred and emotion at this unjust deed is bottled up until we explode with rage at the offender. They deserve punishment. They deserve justice.

It’s hard to go against this human reaction. It’s hard to see the point of forgiveness, of compassion, of understanding. Especially when the enemy seems content in killing innocent civilians wandering the streets of night-time Paris.

Don’t let a bad event change who you are. Don’t let it take over your life, change your values and fill your emotional bucket with hatred and anger.

The Doctor truly is an inspiration. No matter how old he is.

I’ll end with the viral letter of a bereaved victim of the Paris attacks. His stubborn refusal to hate the enemy is a lesson for us all.

Friday night, you took an exceptional life — the love of my life, the mother of my son — but you will not have my hatred. I don’t know who you are and I don’t want to know, you are dead souls. If this God, for whom you kill so blindly, made us in His image, every bullet in the body of my wife would have been one more wound in His heart.

So, no, I will not grant you the gift of my hatred. You’re asking for it, but responding to hatred with anger is falling victim to the same ignorance that has made you what you are. You want me to be scared, to view my countrymen with mistrust, to sacrifice my liberty for my security. You lost.

I saw here this morning. Finally, after nights and days of waiting. She was just as beautiful as when she left on Friday night, just as beautiful as when I fell hopelessly in love over 12 years ago. Of course I am devastated by this pain, I give you this little victory, but the pain will be short-lived. I know that she will be with us every day and that we will find ourselves again in this paradise of free love to which you have no access.

We are just two, my son and me, but we are stronger than all the armies in the world. I have no more time to waste on you, I need to get back to Melvil who is waking up from his nap. He is barely 17-months-old; he’ll eat his snack, like every day, and then we’re going to play like we do every day; and every day of his life this little boy will insult you with his happiness and freedom. Because no, you will not have his hatred either.

Antoine Leiris