Sensitive

The first headline that I saw upon opening my preferred online news source, BBC.com, read "Moscow bombing: Carnage at Russia's Domodedovo airport".  

I'm sure the article was a simulacrum of all other reports out of most any other news source.  It wasn't just the content that was disturbing so much as the ability to sympathize.  This isn't, obviously, the first time an airport has been a targeted locale, and it's not the first time a suicide bomber has successfully taken not just his own life but others' as well.  I think what struck me today was the airport factor.  For the most part, I love airports. 

Airports mean relentless people watching (which I am a fan of), and airports mean travel (which I am a fan of).  Today, my best friend was returning from Las Vegas (which I am a fan of...for the first 24 hours...I think), and the instant message I sent today included the newsflash of the incident.  To my friend's credit, he's pretty up to speed with the world even when he's crawling back from Sin City, so he'd already heard.  It was the airport factor--this need to share this news.  Hypothetically, we could all be at the airport; we all go to airports.  I know I'm not at the mosque.

So, in short, the incident left me thinking not about my own potential peril, or that of anyone I know because I'm not a paranoid apocalypse predictor, but about the fact that tragedy resounds most eminently when you can put yourself in it.  Obvious?  Sure, but it made me second guess my sensitivity, and that wasn't necessarily as obvious.

Life sometimes can be sensitive.
Sensitive: –adjective

  endowed with sensation; having perception through the senses;

  readily or excessively affected by external agencies or influences