Coming Home

All the overly stated cautions come to mind when your eyes first see the vacant opening in the door, and its shattered remains scattered about the floor. Burglary, vandals, fear, anger, the violation of our sanctity, all the emotional upheaval we experience, and yet there is no solid evidence to back up any of our initial assumptions.  The cause for the condition of the door, and the glass pane that once was, and is no more, manages our immediate response.

I can only assume it is the shock of the change in normalcy, that brings on this onslaught of confusion.  The term breaking and entering is taken for granted; It has become commonplace. It has morphed into a predictable and accepted segment of our everyday experience. The blatantly imposed change in our surroundings invites a reaction that is normally stored, in some recess of our mind, waiting for the extraordinary to occur, and be exposed. It is then dragged out, dusted off, and used to embellish our reaction to having our environment, our personal space, disrespected.

It is not that we are not moved by events in our routines, but they must trigger an extreme deviation from the ordinary for us to notice or react. Complacency is a normal part of everyday existence. It allows our mind to process the billions of bits of information received, labeled, and stored in the “little gray cells” that Agatha Christy refers to, as our inhouse computer, and not begin looking for cuckoo nests. 

We pull out the knowledge necessary to keep our gyroscopic lives spinning in an equilibrium of time and space, that allows us to move through our days, with the least resistance. But resistance to what? Does the very fact that what we consider normalcy, cause us to become isolated from life’s experiences because they do not fit a category we have built into our storage unit?

The broken glass causes our concept of routine and social acceptability, to be altered. It leads us down a path we are not familiar with, as it is not part of our normal routine.

As I look at the damage, and attempt to pry the possible cause, from my stored experience. I immediately look at the headline, and the word “Fear” is the red flag waving in the suspicious wind.  

Is it the change in routine, the reaction that change solicits, or the projected possible scenarios that may stem from our encounter with change, that leaves us confused? I can only question why I immediately take the path, not necessarily driven by experience, but by hearsay, innuendo, fabrication, but nonetheless, a cautionary tale of what we might expect. I have never been accosted, vandalized, nor has my property or person been harmed in any manner. Yet, why don't I turn first to the alternative means of determining the cause; the evidence, and the clues it provides in determining the probability of the cause, based on the facts?

I fear we have inadvertently trained ourselves to allow our instinctual precautionary reactions to be that of, the worst-case scenario. It after all, is the premise for the thriller movies and books we enjoy, and the main theme of our daily news. We are bombarded hourly, imperceptibly, by thousands of references to the bad and ugly side of life, but rarely given a glimpse of the goodness that goes unheralded.

I am either going to get hit by lightning if I go outdoors when the sky roars, or scratch myself insane, because of the shingles virus. Cancer awaits around every corner, as does hepatitis, and dozens of viruses, that are just waiting for the next strangers involuntary sneeze, to release mutant germs from captivity, and join their brethren in ridding the planet of their hosts; me, and you.

I can only assume that because we have learned to be skeptical of living to a ripe old age, whose longevity is lessened with each environmental deregulation, that we are succumbing to the very thing we fear, change.

I don’t know how to change the environment from which we draw our conclusions, as our storage units are exposed to so many choices, and the majority of them are negative. How do we see that glass on the floor, the hole in our door, and react differently, than in the way we have allowed ourselves to be trained to react.

I wish I had the answer. I could bottle it, and brand it as the solution to solutions. Cancer would become a myth of future fairy tales. Pandemics, little more than cartoons about computer generated entities being tricked into boarding a space ship, bound for a distant planet, where sickness and pain are not allowed to exist. It is against their newest religion. 

The glass however remains a reminder, that reality is the prevalent entity in the world in which we exist. But how that world is viewed, and our reactions to it, would change the outcome of how we live our lives. 

I can imagine, if we put aside prejudice, greed, hate, anger, intolerance, and dozens of things we could list that detract from our daily exposure to good, we would be the better for it. 

I believe however that to find agreement on what to label individual elements on our list, would be difficult, because as we have learned to choose fear as our first option to a problem, we have learned to not trust ourselves to know which choice to make, regardless of the facts. We have learned that what we believe to be good, has a different meaning from what we perceive to be good. We have learned to chase (tales) in the pursuit of happiness, that can only be gained individually. There is plenty of evidence to show that group happiness tends to erode into Jones Towns, school massacres, and insurrection, to name a few.

I realize that only I can determine what makes me gravitate towards what I consider good, and only I can determine my own happiness. I wish only that we are capable, with our vast knowledge and achievement, to be able to relearn the art of communication; our ability to impart knowledge and beliefs, not unchallenged, but within a freedom that allows our beliefs to be aired without the fear of reprisal. 

Just as we have learned to be directed by fear, we have also been taught to distrust views that differ from our own, without analysis.

Insecurity has evolved from, the lack of our ability to listen, and not react as though someone has thrown a rock through our window. It may after all have simply been a ball, thrown errantly by a neighbors child.

If we continue to act as though we are living a cautionary tale, we will most assuredly find we are spending all our time, looking under paranormal rocks for the evidence we have been assured is there, but we just haven’t looked long and hard enough to find.

Once we have deceived ourselves into believing every broken window, misplaced lawn chair, or theory, leads to evil, we will only have the learned lesson of the devil, in which to entertain our definition of good, and our contrived assumption of evil, in another's mind.