[ another philosophical-ish thing ]

   We were in class, and our teacher had us watch a video about 9/11.

   It was sort of odd, watching it. My brain processed it, but I just couldn't imagine all the people inside. I just couldn't think of the thousands in there freaking out, I couldn't think of the people on the lower floors who felt the crash and thought they had time to evacuate, I couldn't think of what their last thoughts had been when the entire building just...collapsed.

   A person spoke in the video. She said, "There were a line of ambulances, all the way down the road. But nobody had called 911. Nobody had called the ambulance. We waited and waited, until we realized that there was nobody left who could call."

   So often, we talk about people who die. They tell us hundreds drown trying to get away from Syria. They tell us thousands died in Pearl Harbor. They tell us millions died during the Holocaust. 

  "Number of casualties," they say.

   It doesn't even matter to me.

   Because I don't understand, I can't process. I don't have the capacity to imagine that. I don't have the capacity to imagine millions of people with personalities, with issues, with lives, all as complex as my own, were suddenly gone.

   I can't imagine how many more millions were devastated by those deaths.

   Death really doesn't matter to those who die. They've moved on. 

   It's those who're left behind that really suffer. It's to them that it matters.

   We learned about the Boston Massacre in Social Studies during the Civil War unit. Five people died.

   Somehow, I feel more for these deaths than the deaths of all those thousands.

   Five humans. Five lives. So many countless more connected to those five. Somehow, those five lives caused so much more difference than the thousands other that died in other massacres. 

   Why do things that in essence are exactly the same matter so much more than others?

   Context is so powerful.