Drinking Arsenic

A woman sat down in a bar, pulled out a flask, and swigged it. 

The man next to her asked what she was drinking. 

She said, "Arsenic." 

The man replied, "Arsenic?! Isn't that poisonous? What's it taste like?" 

The woman said, "Cherry." 

The man grabbed the flask out of her hand, took a swig, and said, "I don't taste any cherry. But definitely blueberry." 

The bartender watched all of this happen and yelled, "Are you guys crazy?" 

Then he pulled out a cup, scooped ice into it, and said, "You're supposed to drink it on ice."

This absurd scene is a perfect metaphor for what's going on in our world.

The poison is the endless cycle of religious fighting and political violence. The man and woman are the two sides of the same coin, so caught up in arguing whether the poison tastes like "cherry" or "blueberry" that they forget they're killing themselves. 

The bartender is the system that has the power to put a stop to this, but legitimizes it instead by making it more appealing. 

Both sides ultimately want the same thing: a safe neighborhood, stable pay, and the freedom to live a healthy life. But what they're arguing and risking their lives over has become irrelevant, a distraction from the real poison they're both willingly drinking.