I sometimes feel like we are living in a science fiction movie. There are places of peace and places of war. There are forces of good and forces of evil. There are heroes and then, of course, there are villains. The fighting takes place just out of the corner of our eye, just beyond our perimeter. We watch it unfold on our glowing sanitized screens, recounted by preternaturally youthful news anchors. We shake our heads and mutter from the couch: It's terrible so very terrible. That plane that went down, they say it was ISIS. Those Syrian refugees, they drowned when escaping. Those race riots in Fergusson, I hear there was looting. Why, even Paris isn't safe. Paris! The terrorists....well they are everywhere.

And the National Rifle Association tells us that guns are the answer. And Donald Trump tells us that building walls is the answer. And there is just one massacre after another: in stadiums, in movie theaters, in nightclubs, in airports. Even In children's schools.

And so we press the button to turn the screen off and think to ourselves that the world has become an ugly and unsafe place. We are better off just minding our own business and looking at pretty pictures on Pinterest.

And so in the wake of sadness in Instanbul, Dhaka and Baghdad a little tribute to our world. The world that is still inspiring, still fascinating, still hopeful. Beauty is everywhere, the beams of light still shine brightly. There has never been a better time to travel and be in this world, not on the sidelines. Goodness will triumph, even if there are no Hollywood endings.

Image of a Turkish hammam by French photographer, Marc Riboud.

Image of women in Dhaka by Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul Alam

Image of dancing gypsies in Iraq by Austrian photographer Inge Morath