There must
be, somewhere in the mind, a cut-out switch
to prevent over-load and burn-out, otherwise
the pains and problems of life would soon drive
us insane.
This cushioning
mechanism, however, is sometimes over-protective,
and, while helping us overcome sorrow and hardship,
and enable us to carry on, it also lets us forget
too easily, and so learn little from it all.
This causes
us to treat life lightly, and expect it to be
always there. Daily, we see on TV the road fatalities,
the mass-death of people in earthquakes, mine-disasters,
floods, industrial accidents, plane-crashes,
ethnic rioting, bloody revolutions, wars and
so on, and gradually, we become inured to it
all; it loses its ability to shock or disturb
us. It might be happening to others, but we
don’t imagine it could happen to us; somehow,
we feel exempt from all that.
And so,
we are often caught unawares. |