Fear Itself

Been busy for a while. Running around and doing car-related stuff has been keeping me away from the internet lately.

I spent a big chunk of money on Tuesday. I wanted to get a CD-player for the car and ended up overhauling the entire audio system. Cost me more than a grand. It was worth it though, the Pioneer player and JBL speakers produced crystal clear sound at ten paces. Awesome !

Just now I also asked to join Amy's community blog. Posting on someone else's blog, now that would be an interesting experience. I hope I get a lot of cool ideas to write there.

If you guys haven't seen her blog, you should go check it out. She's great.

The other night, I was in my room playing Diablo2 when suddenly my mom went up and spoke to me. She told me that she and my dad were concerned about something. They were worried because I like to drive with my windows down. They told me that I should wind up the windows, because if my windows are down people can attack me and do bad things like throw acid in my face.

Okay, first of all I appreciate the concern and the advice. Secondly, if someone really wanted to hurt me while I'm driving, did it not occur to my parents that the impregnated glass window of the average automobile would not be able to cope with bullets, rockets, bricks, rocks and other projectiles hurled with great force ? But that's besides the point.

The real point here is that my parents (and a good number of other people) live in FEAR. They're always so worried that bad things would happen. I have a friend who will not drive to my house under any circumstances because "I live so far away" and she might get stopped by bandits along the way and get assaulted. Funny how some of my other girl friends live even further away and still come by the house....

Okay fine, we have to be careful right ? Take the precautions and make yourself as difficult a target for criminals, for example. I'm not saying that we should be reckless and go about our business willy-nilly without being careful but there is such a thing as being irrational.

What I'm going to say is that if you let irrational fear get in the way of your life, then the bad guys win. There's an episode in Angel where one of the characters (a police officer) told Angel this:-

"This guy could go to jail tomorrow, Angel, and still kill her in her dreams every night. I’ve put a few of these creeps away and the hardest thing is to know that he is still winning. She’s still afraid. He took her power away and no one can get it back for her but her.”

*The "she" in question is a victim of a stalker.

That's what I'm saying. If you've been victimised and you let that fear control you, the bad guys still win even if he/she's not around anymore. The only way is to fight and take back your life. Easy ? No, but the alternative is even worse. Think about it.

Gee I hoped that made sense.