Reading and writing here, I am reminded of Nietzsche and his famous observation: "When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you."
Frankly, I think a glance now and then is heathy but it can become an obsession. Looking long and hard at unsettling topics affects different people differently. Some are influenced adversely, others are not.
On this Locals we look at plenty of 'scary' possibilities, worrisome events, and interpretations of events. We post reports or viewpoints that may or may not be accurate with the assumption that we all can handle it without being drawn off-centre or being harmed. Not everyone can.
Some people who walk confidently across the living room or down the street without ever falling could not walk along a solid steel beam hundreds of feet above the pavement without panicking and falling. Some people can stand calmly on the edge of a cliff, and some cannot.
I am reminded of Nathaniel Hawthorn's cautionary story, Young Goodman Brown:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Goodman_Brown:
Ottawa Funded the China Ferry Deal—Then Pretended to Oppose It
While Beijing-backed hackers infiltrated Canadian telecoms, federal and B.C. leaders quietly financed a billion-dollar shipbuilding deal with a Chinese state firm—then tried to pass the buck.
https://theoppositionnewsnetwork.substack.com/p/ottawa-funded-the-china-ferry-dealthen
Some of these things I still miss
I grew up without safe spaces.
I grew up without trigger warnings.
I drank water from the hose.
I ate peanuts in class.
None of us wore a helmet.
Kids got hurt. We fell down. And we signed a lot of casts.
We couldn’t pause TV. We’d call out “It’s on!” as soon as the commercials started to end (for those who had left the room). And we watched our favourite shows as a family.
There was no next day delivery.
There was no bundle this with that.
There was no internet. Skip the Dishes didn’t exist.
Fast food was not the norm. It was easier to eat healthy. There were home phones. There was VH.........
