I don’t remember ever having seen anything that threw me out of my comfort zone and forced me to think about roles in general and my own role in my life as this video.

I would scream again and again replaying this video in my head. You cannot lie in wait for a photograph if such a drama is playing out in front of you. You have got the wrong end of the stick! Don’t let him kill her! Save her! Attract his attention, hurl the camera at him, jump on his back, or change everything with the power of your thoughts…! Whatever, don’t just wait passively for the shot! But somehow, it seems to me, that was the only possibility for her.

I would fight in that situation… If the world stopped fighting, would there be even more dead people? All the characters in the video are there: a victim, a persecutor and a rescuer. Should not each one have played his or her role? Didn’t I recognize all the roles? Will the game go to another level: will she save more lives going public with the photo?

Essentially it is of great importance to me that I understand my own position: I would like to act with my whole being, uniting all my roles into one, without fragmentation in time and space, following my job description as mother, teacher, friend, wife and neighbour. I want to maintain my consciousness concerning my connections with other living beings, and to every creature in my focus I want to give all that they can take from me, in a way that makes our lives more dignified. That is my ideal. Thanks to this thought provoking story, it seems clearer to me how I would like to live a life worth living.

What limits our roles? Where do we draw the line: this is acceptable behavior, this is not; this is needed, this is not; this is allowed, this is not? What leads us to make a certain decision in a moment without thinking? Just fear or is it love?

Is it possible to live permanently totally, wholly? Or is our learned fragmentation the only possible state of consciousness? What does the total knowledge of the world, which we are a part of, mean? How many senses do we need to be totally aware? Or is intuition enough? When does someone have the right of free choice, when are we allowed to intervene in other people’s relationships or lives without asking? If another person’s life is in question, is it worth putting my life on the line? Are we allowed to live in another way than helping other people, preventing another person’s death and minimizing someone’s suffering?

Could the woman in the film have done more than she actually did? Or would the alternative have been to be killed instead of the child? Do our roles limit us or conversely enable us to give the best of ourselves?

This film puts my deepest convictions in question. This story asks for my story as an answer.

Will I, living my worthy life, have at the end my life the answers to these questions?

It is fashionable to say I am living here and now. Fortunately – that’s true. The truth acts upon us and we recognize it through physiology, through the good feelings that we have when truth is finally spoken or lived even unconsciously. There is a difference between good feelings accompanying truth and the bitter feelings of the lies that cramp our muscles and hunch up our shoulders. When we worry about the future or regret the past, our physiology warns us that we are in a bad state. Very often we are not conscious of this, because we are not present. That which our body tells us we often do not understand. Is our role simply to be present? And yet it is so difficult to accept it. Why?

After all these questions, I recognize new signs: the peace that I feel and because of which I know – now I am in my role. Even if I fall apart biting my knuckles in some toilet and weeping loudly, I’ll know it is part of my role. I’ll know I cannot be good and do the best I can for everyone always.

I want to have a full life, my life in harmony with the peace within me, and if my choice is the cause of disruptions in the future, so be it. Those disruptions I have felt till now and have learnt from them. I cannot live in harmony with unclear ideals.

The more I change my thoughts, the more I learn. The question is on which level: manipulative, transactional, reflective or transformational. When we manipulate something we change one fact for another. On the transactional level we change our thoughts according to others. Reflective learning causes us to write articles like this one having been touched deeply as I was when I saw the video. My worry is, thanks to these questions, shall I go through one more transformation? Shall I become different, more aware, more present, and stronger in all my roles? Or shall I skillfully deny my roles, cross over conventional borders, and stutter when someone asks what I do and who I am?

These questions bring into question my mission in life. I want to supply energy to those who have an influence on the lives of many, to those who want help and know how to ask for it. I am full of joy with those who try to help themselves in every possible way. This is my camera. I wonder if I am more like the photographer, and would I have thrown the camera without hurting anyone but saved a life?