Reading this AP piece prompted a thought about a peculiar phenomena in our nature. The piece describes an Israeli citizen in Kiryat Shmona, a border town on the war-torn frontier with Lebanon. Her business property has just been heavily damaged by a Katyusha rocket and is on fire but she insists on running into the property to retrieve some things at great risk to her life and limb. When she finally comes back out, she has an arm full of papers. Life must go on, you know. It's amazing sometimes, the things people do in order to preserve a semblance of order in their lives. In this case instead of preserving the most precious thing, her very life, and immediately run for shelter, she acts in this rather odd manner.
I kind of understand it, though. We all want to maintain the routine of our everyday existence. Any disruption to this status quo is a trauma to our sensibilities. During strife of any kind, war, earthquake, flood, where our life is so badly disrupted, we say and do things that we hope, in our minds, will reset or recapture the very same conditions that existed before. Change the channel because this reality is not pleasant any more.
I fear that we are all a little guilty of this type of introspective mind game. A kind of self-censoring which prevents us from fully appreciating what the future has in store for us. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Lebanon, Al Qaeda, Hizbollah, etc. When the news media consistently reports bad news day after day which logically should lead us to some very unpleasant conclusions for the future, we simply ignore it. No disruptions are allowed in our routines. The news is unpleasant so just change the channel. Everything is OK and we are safe and secure again. Gotta get some sleep.. need to get up early and get to work.
