Fear.
 

Now that I've got your attention, I'd like to apologize for playing such a lame trick. You see, the word "fear" invokes such a powerful emotion that we often find ourselves in a weird state of mind. Yesterday a few of my classmates and I were talking about the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech and there were many interesting points that were brought up. But one of the most interesting things I heard were the words of my professor who (and I'm paraphrasing) said "You know, it's really unfortunate about what happened a few days ago and when you step back and absorb all the news and rumors that are told, it's really difficult to keep a calm mind throughout all this. However, you gotta realize that there are so many different things to consider here. For example, the number of car-related-deaths are much higher than the amount of schools being shot up. And there are so many fearful things that we are exposed to on a day to day basis that we really don't pay attention anymore. Besides, it's not like the media is helping with any of this anyway."

What do you guys think of all this? To me, fear isn't necessarily a bad thing all the time. It's one of the main reasons our species has survived for so long. But when it comes down to it, my professor wasn't saying that the Virginia Tech incident wasn't important, he's just saying that there really isn't any reason to get really paranoid about all this since there are so many things to worry about already. It's times like these that I'm really thankful for the wonderful world of music and expression and all the different souls that have shared their music with me. :love3:

It's the news. They tell you if something's new. Car crashes aren't news, they happen all the time. The sun shining isn't news. Almost anything in Present Perfect isn't news. Not to the media people, anyway. No. News is just another way of selling you a reality you can live with.
Life, on the other hand, real life, not the life you see on BBC or CNN or whatever, they are unpredictible. The most horrible thing about life, for me, is the fact that they can be over any minute. I have zero control over it. I can try to reduce the chances, but to no good.
So we adjust. We deny. We tell ourselves we're good drivers. We take chances. Sometimes it works, sometimes we die. The most important thing to remember is that whatever you do, you do not raise or lower the chance of you dying.
That's why I tend to agree - fear is not a reason.

One of the most horrible things about a tragedy like the Virginia Tech shootings is the media attention that murderer gets. That is giving him exactly what he wanted..He sent those media packs because he wanted to be studied and feared, etc. The best thing we can do is not give him that. I wish the media would just drop it really. Things are taken to such an extreme in the media, and like your Professor was saying -- bad things do happen every single day.. We cannot let them stop us from living though. We have to just realise how lucky we are to have what we do..and just make the most of it while we can :)

"let me die in my foot steps, before I go down under the ground"-- Bob Dylan (full song lyrics)

Dylan was talking about all the fear that was going on in the early 60s, particularily the fear of bombs; they would do all of the bomb drills where they would go into underground shelters. Dylan's philosphy was he'd rather go about his everyday life normally rather than live in constant fear of bombs and going into the shelter every time there was a bomb scare. of course we are going to have some fear though but we can't let it ruin our lives. "All men die, few men truly live" - braveheart (kinda taken out of context)

:hello2: post of the day..post of the week even! :)

any donnie darko fans out there!! I hope so!! just reminds me of the board his classrrom was given where they had to categorize each situation between love and fear: and donnie's response of how there are so many interlying emotions, It's not that simple ect.

and yes fear serves a purpose, but i believe it should be an individual one, fear of consequence for one's actions, we can only control what we do and how we treat ourselves and others, and those are the most important, everything else is out of our hands

I'm really enjoying everyone's input in all this. Lately I've realized just how self-centered I've been and it really makes me step back and look at the world in a whole new way. And you know, this is nothing entirely new. Every decade has had it's ups and downs and the emotions we're feeling are no different than what those before us had felt. Go on, ask your parents how the politics of their time differed from ours. I'm sure you'll be surprised to find out that there really is no difference at all. As long as we're sitting in our comfortable chairs staring at the tube, surrendering our minds and allowing them to weaken our will, change is forever inevitable. I walk down the street and see a poor man playing a guitar with a case full of change and the first thing that comes to mind is "Come on, do something useful." But when I actually hear the music he plays it's totally different. Could you imagine actually running across Damien this way when he was busking around Europe? Man, I would have loved to have had that experience and then see him grow to where he is now and where he will eventually be. Funny how perspective works huh?

Especially since 45 workers died in a mine on that day, and 200 people died in Iraq. Funny how they weren't the big headlines.

I guess it's like anything else really, people tend to concentrate on what they're being told. For instance you'll be quite likely to worry about the amount of money in the bank, but if you own a house a bad day for house prices could end up with you being a few hundred grand poorer, yet most people wouldn't notice that, and might still be worried about the cost of bread and milk.

What really depresses me about something like the Virginia Tech shooting is seeing people use it to their advantage to try to make a cheap political point. For instance Dr. Phil had blamed the whole thing on videogames before the police had even identified a suspect. When it turned out that the shooter didn't own or play videogames it didn't matter, because there's still a seed of fear in people's minds.