The rolling banner scrolls across the bottom of BBC News, too quick to comprehend. We see a solemn correspondent standing at the site of yet another mass murder. Numbers, figures, and speculations are regurgitated as the world reels in shock. This is a routine we have seen repeated with alarming frequency over the past year or so, with attacks in Paris, Brussels, Orlando, Baghdad, Istanbul, Nice, and Munich. A series of acts of violence so senseless, a loss of life so pointless, that we hardly know how to respond. These places can seem so distant from our cosy quotidian existence, and yet the devastation twists a gut-wrenching knot into one’s stomach which refuses to budge. The urgent need to place and express our feelings about the situation seems overwhelmed by the stream of numbers and images and video footage which saturate the news and social media. And then, in the following days, experts deconstruct and dissect the attacker’s motives. Their affiliations and dispositions and mental health records will be analysed while the public watches passively, consumed in horror, suspicion, and fear, already waiting for the next atrocity to hit.

Such attacks are terrifying because they are random: they rupture the comforting order of daily life and do not discriminate between man, woman, or child, leaving those remaining with a dizzying sense of helplessness and panic. This is not easy to eliminate. But, I believe that our best defence, and indeed our best remedy against these feelings lies in our most essential human qualities: kindness, compassion, and creativity. I’m acutely aware that this sounds like a small comfort. Horror of this kind makes you want to scream your lungs out and lash against the air, exerting some violent force back upon the world that allowed it to happen in the first place. These optimistic buzzwords might feel somewhat like putting a plaster over a gaping stab wound.

It is easy and instinctive to want to dissect and anatomise; to search for reasons why the terror attack happened. And, of course, there is a place for all that. But when we inevitably cannot find a satisfying answer, our ability and courage to keep generating good in the face of destruction is what we must cling to. It is this unique kind of bravery which makes Antoine Lewis’ open letter to his wife’s killers so uplifting and redemptive to read: as he promises to return to life with his young son ‘just like every other day’ he at once grieves for his wife while boldly shunning the hateful, fear-mongering tactics of her killers. It is in the wake of such tragedies that we often find the most touching stories of kindness: the people who open their doors to the shocked and injured; the survivors who carry others to safety; and those who even sacrifice themselves to save total strangers. It is these stories that offer hope for the essential good of people in the darkest of times.

It has been pointed out many times that the despicable acts of terror we have witnessed over the last couple of years aim to separate people and communities, creating an ‘us’ and ‘them’ narrative of suspicion. We can fight this, at least in part, by ignoring the attempt. If everyone were to make a conscious effort to engage with their neighbours, make people feel welcome, or reach out to those who might need help, we will not only find comfort in others, but may even have some power to reverse the intended feelings of isolation and disillusionment. Of course, our governments still have a lot to answer for and what I suggest may certainly not be enough, but it is at least a start.

At times when it feels like the world is full of terrible people, we must also remember that we humans are the species who invented the Internet to connect us to people across the globe, the same beings who have dedicated lives to developing cures for illness. We are kin of the thousands who have created art and literature so rich and beautiful that we have been making each other laugh and cry for thousands of years. Our immense capacity for love and compassion and endless invention is an indisputable fact. The people and ideologies that condone these attacks are interested only in destruction; to keep living and creating in the face of this is the bravest thing I can imagine. And yes, I am still scared, and afraid; the cruel, pointless loss of life will never taste anything but foul and acidic. But we can remember those we have lost by celebrating the wonderful lives they have led, shutting out their murderers by absorbing the kindness and good that happens quietly every day underneath the ever-ringing alarm bells of the news.

We cannot hope to fix everything, and coping with such an onslaught is not easy. But we are not as powerless as we think. Remind yourself that good things happen every day, talk to your neighbours and be kind to those you stumble across. Our best and most defiant weapon is to keep living as freely and unafraid as we always have, because it is only when we have stopped doing this so that we will truly have lost.