Fear Mongers and Fearmongering

I have to say, these days, everywhere you look, you will run smack-dab into my pet peeve: fearmongering. According to Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus.com, the word “fearmongering” doesn’t exist, so I suppose that means that I’ve made it up. This is the way I would define it: “Monger” is defined to mean a “dealer, hawker, merchant, peddler, or trader” and these days we all know what fear is all about, so when you put those together, a “fearmonger” would be someone who peddles fear.

No matter where you go in the United States (I can’t speak for foreign countries), you are barraged by fearmongering. The daily newspaper headlines are filled with dire warnings regarding the economy, wars, terrorism, crime rates, and for heaven’s sake, bed bugs.

Television shows and the accompanying commercials all tell you to fear growing old, getting fat, having a heart attack, having bad breath, not shaving close enough, or having mesothelioma or some other horrific, uncurable disease; that you might fall and not be able to get up, you might be losing your hair, that your teeth might be a bit yellow, and that the only sex you are likely to have will probably happen in separate bathtubs. And don’t even get me started on the drug advertising. I have absolutely no idea why someone would want to take a prescription drug for a skin condition when a side effect of that drug might be cancer. What, because you are afraid someone won’t like you because you have scaly skin? Go figure.

Movies are the same way. Last night, Harry and I watched a movie he requested from NetFlix - “From Paris, With Love.” John Travolta and John Rhys-Meyers starred in this convoluted story, and the movie was a roller-coaster of violence and mayhem, leaving one convinced that every person in one’s life could possibly be a spy or terrorist hell-bent on revenge. Now, that’s entertainment!

Maybe I should have been born a dog, a creature of the here and now, rather than a human being who should think deep, ponderous, scary thoughts of how bleak the future is. I suppose there are good reasons to be informed about the state of the world, and I have been told on more than one occasion that it isn’t good to hide one’s head in the sand and just plain ignore the workings of the government, politics and world news. I admit it: I dutifully vote whenever there is an election, but that’s about it. I avoid news programs (except for the weather) and I never read the newspaper (except for the comics). I promise you, when I find a news source that will accurately and plainly inform me, without bias or attempting to browbeat me into submissive, cowering fear, I will gladly broaden my horizons.

Until then, depending on the weather, you might find me in the garden, coaxing tiny green shoots of life from the ground; in the garage, happily making boxes and other things out of wood scraps; in the basement, fitting pieces of brightly colored glass together; or anywhere the dogs are, either playing with them or stroking their soft fur and quietly gazing into the bottomless well of love in their eyes. You might find me sitting on a quiet hillside, watching the sparkle of the sun dancing on a lake, or joyfully running and laughing with the dogs in the brilliant, blinding white snow the day after a big storm. And you also might find me on your doorstep, a pan of warm, fragrant cinnamon rolls in my hands.

That’s just the way I roll.