Absolutely, Tsaria! I agree--life always has been frightening and now is particularly frightening, especially with the world being so much smaller due to advances in transportation, communication and other technologies, allowing us to kill each other so much more easily and efficiently. I live very close to a nuclear power plant and, believe me, I realize that all of us residing in this region are a prime target for terrorists. If someday another "9/11" occurs and I stop posting, that may very likely be the reason why.
That being said, revolutions of any kind--government and religion in particular, but also those regarding art, sexual attitudes, dress, etc.--are often the stuff that continue to fuel the violence we've been citing. I said "fuel" because I think we all know that people rarely are motivated to go to war if they enjoy a good living standard. It is the extremes of weath and poverty that encourage literal and figurative rabble rousing, and with good reason . . . except, as we know via what happened in 1917, such "revolutions" often set a populace back rather than sending them forward.
Of course people also feel threatened by possible changes to their culture, which includes some of those aspects I've mentioned above--religion, sexuality, etc. I suppose most of us understand that right now people on ALL sides are fanning such flames. Certain eastern cultures feel that western culture is an abomination, and many western countries feel that eastern cultures want to obliterate their own freedoms, and y'know what . . . they all have a foothold in reality. Add to that a huge measure of testosterone--for, after all, what is a war without millions of young men, ready to obliterate the enemy--and we have a powderkeg instead of a planet.
Being addressed as one wishes is relatively small stuff in the fabric of any culture. Still, as a writer I want to also add that words and the way we use them say quite a lot about our attitudes and how we perceive ourselves and others. Since we've just experienced a national election here in the United States, I'm casting my vote for the following: The right to be addressed--and live--as I wish, and to remember that in order to expect that right I must also, likewise, respect the same right for others.
But what happens if someone in another country feels that I am part of The Great Satan and that I must knuckle under or die, while simultaneously someone in this country realizes that our economy depends on the exportation of resources from that nation which, in the process, continues to exploit that nation? And, in feeling this way, each nation villifies the other's cultures? Soon thousands upon thousands of people are willing to join in the battle for supremacy, uping the ante for a kill-or-be-killed world.
Bottom line: Let's all enjoy this website and the world while we can.
