Perils
No doubt about it – there are going to be “perils” . That’s the term insurance companies use when they are talking about those “risks” we want to be insured against.
Things like illness, loss of property, accidents and inclement weather and all of those things that have a chance of happening at some point – so insurance companies what us to be “safe”.
But what amazes me most is that we work so hard to attempt to recognize them. But it seems we are always in denial. What ever the perils are we want to know about them, but we don’t want someone to stop us from being in the way of them.
We are good with the idea that today’s industries are polluting the world, but we are not willing to give up their benefits of energy and goods that make our immediate life easier.
There are so many ways we could be safer, could avoid some of life’s perils. But it seems that protection could come with the sacrifice of our freedom to experience them. So experience we do- and then we are amazed when people step into the perils of life and living. It becomes the fodder for Internet news daily.
But doesn’t it seem that we are always in denial of that fact that we could be “next”? Some poor person, group, country has made a blunder beyond belief, but we are always thinking that “that’s not me” and we will be just fine. No perils in our way.
Do you notice that there are always other “do gooders”: that are out there trying to help us avoid these perils? Yet we reject their help in the sacrifice for independence, for freedom. Maybe that is from our childhood? When we were young (and even as we got older) our parents and teachers would warn us of perils – “be careful” – “don’t do that” – but we would not listen. We would want to go ahead anyway.
We would desire our independence and work on our own to just avoid them, but we don’t. We embrace our freedom. Freedom to be stupid on our own perhaps. Freedom to make mistakes, and perhaps- just maybe- freedom to be ignorant of the reality of what is really important.
Tracks In The Dust 