Be Afraid!

There are literally thousands, perhaps millions, of devices devoted simply to make us safe in our day to day lives. Everything from car airbags, safety rails, seat belts and guardrails all exist to make sure we don’t damage or injure ourselves or those we love. But shouldn’t we look at the actual things that we’re wanting to defend ourselves from? Isn’t it worth considering the value of cars and industrial equipment that we can be certain will lead to the deaths and maiming of many people each year?

This is a difficult question to ask, because although we know these objects cause massive amount of damage to humans and animal life, we need to keep them with us for our own convenience and to maintain the economy of western countries alive. Imagine if tomorrow the Government made a law disallowing the use of motor vehicles. Obviously this would be a major inconvenience as many of us would have difficult getting to work and train lines would be very crowded.

But that’s not even factoring in the way cars (or any oil-powdered contraption) are so heavily required to keep our civilization going along. Consider that if we want to have food brought to cities from farms, it will need to be driven by trucks. If a home is burning, we would need a fire truck. In so many ways never normally considered, we’re reliant on the use of dangerous vehicles just to keep ourselves alive.

In the civilized society, we like to give ourselves a considerable amount of distance from the realities of death. Such realities are, obviously, still ever-present, but our capabilities to stay away from the fact that we could die at any time are quite effective.

The fear is still present, of course, but it tends to grow displaced in different fears such as the worry of terrorism, shark attacks or criminal activity. When any of these is compared to the amount of damage created by work accidents, or vehicle crashes, or diseases caused by smoking and alcohol use, the things we fear more are actually the reason for far less damage.

Imagine, for a moment, if we feared alcohol and cigarettes to a similar extent we fear terrorism. Anyone claiming to support the use of beer or going to a pub would be shunned by their community, those who claimed to enjoy smoking would be profiled by thier police, and anyone walking down the street with a bottle of Jack Daniels would be seen as a danger to national security. Of course, this is all a bit silly, but the statistical facts show that the danger of these is more real by any threat we can see from terrorists.

Fear is, by its very nature, irrational. If we can view the realities of our current situation, and what actual threats we may be victim to, we’ll be able to make changes in our lives that can cause major improvements in the well-being of ourselves and those around us.