Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Bowling for Columbine
Fear is a concept that is portrayed all around you as you grow up. Everywhere you go there is a build up of fear and concern. The news especially instills fear in Americans by highlighting all the bad things that go wrong or can go wrong. People begin to fear each other. Do you really ever feel safe, even in your own home? I know that I don't. I really realized how dependent Americans are on fear. Just the other day I was home alone for maybe only 20 minutes and I couldn't help but get scared in that 20 minute time period. My parents had just gone out to dinner and I was waiting for a freind to pick me up to go out. I was watching TV when the doorbell rang. As soon as I heard that ding, my heart droped. I turned the TV off and sat in silence not moving. This may seem very unusal, but I was told to never answer the front door when i was growing up, especially when home alone. But now I am 18 years old and I still get scared? Sadly, yes. I did not move to answer the door and I swore I saw someone walking by my kitchen window. This scared the crap out of me as I called my friend asking if she was going to be there soon. I never realized how paranoid of a country America is. Fear exists everywhere we go, even our own homes. However, fear is not always an automatic instinct. Fear is what we know and how we were brought up. There was probably nothing to fear when the doorbell rang, but why was I so scared? It is because of all of the horrible stpries and pictures and things you hear about that make us American protective of ourselves. The news highlights only the bad stuff so it makes it seem that so many bad things happen. But in actuality is only seems that way because happy news is reported not nearly as often.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
OMG - the suspense! Is this like a movie or something? What happened? Who was at the door?
I totally agree with what u were saying about fear and the news...i wrote about the same thing in my blog. Maybe if our country wasn't so scared and defensive all the time, we wouldn't have these problems like school shootings and other violent tragedies.
I am the same way about the doorbell. As a child, I was told to never to answer the door even if there was someone home with me. Now that I am 17, I guess I am old enough to answer the door, but it still scares me. As a child, I was told that if there was someone at the door, never to let them in the house. If it is unsafe for them to step into the house, isn't it still unsafe for them to be right outside the house. I should really grow up and stop being afraid of the doorbell.
Post a Comment