No Wonder We're Afraid

“Hey mister?”

I heard a voice coming from behind me and I turned to see a complete stranger walking toward me quickly.  In a way, it almost felt menacing.  My hands were full with the food bags I had just picked up from the restaurant. Not having my hands free made me feel even more vulnerable. Some of you know that my hands are registered weapons, so, I like having them in the "ready" position when I’m approached by a stranger. (Okay, they’re registered with the Marvel Comics Jr. Crime Fighter Club but that’s still a form of registration.)

Part of me thought, “Keep walking. Don’t stop. Who knows what this guy is up to? This doesn’t seem good.”

In that split second that is all we’re allowed for certain decisions, my mind considered: “What do I do? Stop? Or, keep walking…and quickly?”  But I turned and waited as he approached me. It turns out—as you may have guessed by now—that he was approaching to ask me for help.

Why did I immediately consider that this person might mean to harm me? Well, obviously, that IS a possibility. People have gotten harmed before by strangers who approach them pretending to ask a question. It’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

But I believe that I also immediately considered the possibility of harm because my mind is bombarded with that possibility by the media I consume. I write this very close to the time that two major national news stories involve disturbed gunmen shooting and killing innocent people, one on a military base in Texas and one in an office building in Florida.

Even though we’ve heard these kinds of stories before, there is still something that frightens and unsettles us in a primal way—and rightly so—in the wake of random, violent shooting.

Details of these two stories were poured into my mind as I ate breakfast this morning.  Tony The Tiger’s smiling face faded into oblivion as I listened to statistics on how many were dead and how many were wounded. In a way, it’s surprising that I didn’t drop my bags from the restaurant and run as fast as I can the moment I heard the man from behind calling out to me.

I don’t think we should be reckless and taking safety precautions seems wise and perfectly reasonable. But sometimes I wonder if it’s healthy to expose our minds to these stories too long and too often. I know it’s possible to be uninformed—that wouldn’t be good—but I think it might also be possible to be poisonously overloaded with “bad news” stories. I guess what I might be wondering is this: Can a person be negatively over-informed?

P.S.  I did end up giving the guy a few dollars. I like to help out when I can and…well, ….actually, he took my wallet.