Monday, January 03, 2005

Creating Fear

Last weekend I was at a movie with my family on Christmas day. I saw something for the first time that goes along with so many other elements of daily life that are actually creating fear for us. One of the pre-movie announcements was: Look around you and find the 2 exits nearest you. In the event of an emergency, make your way to an exit as quickly as possible. It took me a moment to realize I wasn't on an airplane, but in a movie theater.

The only positive thing I can think of here is that these things give us an opportunity to shift how we feel in the moment - how we want our movie (or airplane or whatever) experience to go for us. I did this for myself last Saturday - spent a moment picturing the lovely, entertaining afternoon I was going to have in the movie theater. That's exactly the experience I had, but I wonder how many people in that theater added for themselves just another tiny layer of "I'm not safe anywhere" to their sense of how it is to live in this world.

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