Zaka
In this age, now more than ever before, fear overwhelmed everything else in society. Why should this be so? Were people as fearful years ago as they are now? Or has society changed to such an extent that along with all of the technological wonders that have been created, to make our lives more comfortable, instead, hand-in-hand with those wonders goes fear.
Society has changed for the worst. My parents tell us every now and then that there was a time, not too long ago, when people could leave their front doors open while they ran to the shops. There was a time when people knew everyone in their neighbourhood by their names. A time when neighbours where like one big family and would look out for each other.When something bad would occur, everyone would chip in to deal with the matter - in other words, people where never left by themselves, or made to feel lonely. It was a time when strangers would be welcomed on any doorstep, with a cheery smile and hello and a new friend would be made.
But times have changed. With the proliferation of newspapers, and the media at large, it seems that every single hour, we are bombarded with the latest atrocity that has occurred in our own country, or somewhere in the world. In fact at one time, bad things only happened to those countries who we would view from far off on our television screens.
The mantra would go: As long as it is happening to them, and not us, then we are alright. In some respects it was a very insular way of thinking, a way of saying that those things that we heard, read or saw would never occur here. How wrong we where. Floods, earthquakes, proliferation in murders, the silence of people who would rather keep themselves to themselves for fear of attack.
People who would step over somebody lying in the street without a second glance. People too afraid to leave their homes unlocked (like our parrents grand parrents used to do). People too afraid to allow their children to play out in the fresh air.
The main causes for all of those things is fear. Fear rules our hearts and our heads and stops us from being fully human, and it traps us into a society that we ourselves have created.
As long as it is on somebody else's doorstep and not mine is the mantra now. That is the way of thinking of all of us in society these days. The modern world in which we live is filled with terrors we could not imagine before, and because of this, fear has a grip on our hearts.
It was a wise man who said that there is nothing to fear but fear itself. What does that mean? Well, if we live our lives by thinking ahead, ie: thinking something might happen to us, or our loved ones, every single time we stepped out the door, then we would never live at all.
The threat of gang warfare, terrorist attacks, and the ultimate, nuclear and biological attacks on our country and person, is too much for us. We cocoon ourselves into our own little worlds, hardly speaking to anyone - if we can help it - and we separate ourselves to such an extent that hate and fear becomes the overriding factors of our lives.
We are too quick to judge a person, because that person, instead of looking at him or her as an individual, we look at them as being part of a group of people who will terrorise us because of their colour or ethnicity. Fear in the modern world, even more so now, than before, makes us too quick to judge others, and that will eventually lead to our downfall.
One cannot help but be scared - fearful that our children may go out to play but then, may never come back. What with child murders, drug dealers, and any number of other things that make us fearful for our very lives in this society, we find ourselves trapped, with no way out.
We work, and that is it. We have no time for recreation because we are always fearful to leave the house empty - in case of robberies, we are scared to go to the park, in case we are attacked not just by gangs, but by dogs too. Dog attacks on adults and children have risen steadily over the years until now they have become a major problem in society.
A whole plethora of incidents in this society makes us fearful for our own lives, and those of our family. In this society it is every man for himself, and it is true. Who would go to help out somebody in trouble, if they are lying in the street? There are not many that would these days, and human life seems cheap.
Death is read about every single day, and we bat not an eyelid. It is no longer front page news because it is so common. with the proliferation of all of the things mentioned, society today is far less tolerant - and far more fearful - than at any other given point in time. We have lost touch with who we are, and in the process we have lost touch with our humanity. This is our own fault and our legacy, because we have created the society that we wanted in the first place.
Society has changed for the worst. My parents tell us every now and then that there was a time, not too long ago, when people could leave their front doors open while they ran to the shops. There was a time when people knew everyone in their neighbourhood by their names. A time when neighbours where like one big family and would look out for each other.When something bad would occur, everyone would chip in to deal with the matter - in other words, people where never left by themselves, or made to feel lonely. It was a time when strangers would be welcomed on any doorstep, with a cheery smile and hello and a new friend would be made.
But times have changed. With the proliferation of newspapers, and the media at large, it seems that every single hour, we are bombarded with the latest atrocity that has occurred in our own country, or somewhere in the world. In fact at one time, bad things only happened to those countries who we would view from far off on our television screens.
The mantra would go: As long as it is happening to them, and not us, then we are alright. In some respects it was a very insular way of thinking, a way of saying that those things that we heard, read or saw would never occur here. How wrong we where. Floods, earthquakes, proliferation in murders, the silence of people who would rather keep themselves to themselves for fear of attack.
People who would step over somebody lying in the street without a second glance. People too afraid to leave their homes unlocked (like our parrents grand parrents used to do). People too afraid to allow their children to play out in the fresh air.
The main causes for all of those things is fear. Fear rules our hearts and our heads and stops us from being fully human, and it traps us into a society that we ourselves have created.
As long as it is on somebody else's doorstep and not mine is the mantra now. That is the way of thinking of all of us in society these days. The modern world in which we live is filled with terrors we could not imagine before, and because of this, fear has a grip on our hearts.
It was a wise man who said that there is nothing to fear but fear itself. What does that mean? Well, if we live our lives by thinking ahead, ie: thinking something might happen to us, or our loved ones, every single time we stepped out the door, then we would never live at all.
The threat of gang warfare, terrorist attacks, and the ultimate, nuclear and biological attacks on our country and person, is too much for us. We cocoon ourselves into our own little worlds, hardly speaking to anyone - if we can help it - and we separate ourselves to such an extent that hate and fear becomes the overriding factors of our lives.
We are too quick to judge a person, because that person, instead of looking at him or her as an individual, we look at them as being part of a group of people who will terrorise us because of their colour or ethnicity. Fear in the modern world, even more so now, than before, makes us too quick to judge others, and that will eventually lead to our downfall.
One cannot help but be scared - fearful that our children may go out to play but then, may never come back. What with child murders, drug dealers, and any number of other things that make us fearful for our very lives in this society, we find ourselves trapped, with no way out.
We work, and that is it. We have no time for recreation because we are always fearful to leave the house empty - in case of robberies, we are scared to go to the park, in case we are attacked not just by gangs, but by dogs too. Dog attacks on adults and children have risen steadily over the years until now they have become a major problem in society.
A whole plethora of incidents in this society makes us fearful for our own lives, and those of our family. In this society it is every man for himself, and it is true. Who would go to help out somebody in trouble, if they are lying in the street? There are not many that would these days, and human life seems cheap.
Death is read about every single day, and we bat not an eyelid. It is no longer front page news because it is so common. with the proliferation of all of the things mentioned, society today is far less tolerant - and far more fearful - than at any other given point in time. We have lost touch with who we are, and in the process we have lost touch with our humanity. This is our own fault and our legacy, because we have created the society that we wanted in the first place.
