You need a crisis to grow (but this isn't what I meant)
On Tuesday this week past, a guy got murdered five minutes from my house.
Poor guy wasn't but in his early 20s, walking home about an hour after dark, on a forest walkway that cuts over to a shopping center up the road.
The path is a little bit of New Zealand bush in the middle of the suburbs. You can almost forget you're in a city. Lots of trees, tui and fantail buzzing around, a few pukeko mingling with the ducks.
We're not talking about an isolated area here. There's houses around, a couple of schools, and the walkway itself gets a lot of foot traffic. During the daylight hours, it's a relaxing 5-minute stroll.
After dark... No lights, lots of places to hide.
Did I mention that this is in sight of my kids' school? I walk there myself a couple of times a week.
Going out for a nice stroll through the wooded path, in the middle of Auckland central, shouldn't be risky even after sundown.
Avalanches shouldn't kill people, either. But, believe it or not, yelling "should not!" at the falling side of a mountain doesn't change the situation. Avalanche don't care.
There's what you'd like to be.
Then there's what's going to be.
Society gets more allergic to risk as each year goes by. The irony of this? People drop their guard. Assume everything is safe because somebody from the government regulated it.
It's done for you.
Until one of the loose screws in the rattling machine of homo sapiens crosses your path.
Like I keep saying:
The more we put on mental autopilot, the less we're able to handle life's unexpected events.
Then again, the more the unexpected happens, the more we're shocked out of the daily sleepwalking.
This one sure did wake me up a little bit.
On a slightly related note, I recorded that short call I was talking about the other day.
Use this link to hear my sweet tones in your ear holes:
You'll have to be a member of my Night's Gate group -- which requires an account with SocialLair -- in order to access that link. If for some mind-defying reason you aren't a member yet, click here for access:
Be good & take it easy.
Matt Perryman
PS That's a secret link inside my Night's Gate group. You won't be able to find it in the regular feed, so make sure you use the link in this post.