Latokoshero Writes

We have been there. It’s post-midnight. Your pitch-black room barely illuminates from a narrow beam of moonlight. Rolled up in the darkness, all you can see is a faint image of your ceiling and what seems like a shadow demon staring at you from the corner. But you care less for tonight. Your thoughts are much darker. We have been there because all of us have made terrible choices in the past — whether it be a decision that would have put you in a better place or something that has hurt someone in unimaginable ways. And these choices hurt us. Most of the time, we cannot forgive ourselves for what we’ve done. Other times, we end up contemplating our present as things could have been different if we had taken some other choices.  I have been experiencing such nights for quite a long time now. Having a brain that likes to show me flashbacks of every deplorable and embarrassing moment of my past doesn’t do much justice to my sleepy eyes.  However, I have come up with some recent re...

The inception of COVID-19 blocked not only the borders around me but also my unfettered inquisitiveness to know about the world. As every news regarding the rise in infections and death toiled my brain, I started to find myself more overwhelmed with any tragedy or updates in the world. I stopped reading news, articles, and podcasts as I used to and I rarely cared about what was happening with anything.  My rationale was simple, and I believe it still holds true for me. At this point, the world was too huge for me to care about because I knew that I barely had any power to change it. Phrases like ‘Ignorance is Bliss’ resonated harder than ever and my conception of a better life became that as an owl(a latokosheko) — blissfully unaware of its unawareness. These thought-trains flowed to questioning the credibility of morality and losing hope after realizing how unfair, chaotic, and immoral the world was.   The availability of other sides provided me with much-needed perspect...

CRASH. Blurry visions of dust, broken glasses, and what seems like a group of militants surround you. You just had an accident.  You open your eyes, walk out, and breathe in the air of being alive; the feel of avoiding death by a second. As your vision starts to become more vivid, you see a policeman looking at you. With dead eyes, he walks 3 steps forward and casually crouches with his gun. The last thing you see is a strong beam of yellow light with a loud bang. You just survived death to be killed again.  The incident I am describing happened in a video that popped up on my Twitter wall a few minutes ago. There wasn’t much context to the video except that it happened in Palestine and was a case of extreme police brutality in an ongoing conflict zone.  As an aspiring Journalist, this sent shivers down my spine. My future profession will most likely revolve around going to the most dangerous of places: at massive protests where I could be hit by a random stone, at terror...