hippie preaching

"Do it or I'll kill you."

Doesn't this phrase, among scare you and shock you...sicken you? Just the thought that human nature could be so much more savage and uncompromising and down to the main point than we are supposed to view it. We are supposed to have faith that humans are above other animals and that we can be above the horrible truth of life...that it's about preventing our personal death.

We still use this technique so much..."Do it or I'll kill you." Or sometimes used "If you do it I'll kill you." We are saying it every time a person holds up a gun. In fact, on a more natural level, we are doing it every time we give a menacing look.

I want to know, am I the only one who gets this feeling? Isn't threatening of death is just a little too real, a little too vital to be threatening all around every day? Bang. Dead. Instant death. It's sickening. I mean granted, when it comes down to it, that may be the only way to get people's attention...but still. I can't stand it. I'm not sure if I've ever been that close to gun. I have seen them on cops that sometimes are security at school dances...but other than that, I am sure I would be very very frightened if I saw one. My parents used to check when I was younger with a friend's parents if they kept a gun in the house before I went over for a play-date. The didn't tell me this until a few years ago, and I was kind of shocked by it. I don't know why I was, maybe because I thought that a gun shouldn't ever come between two little kids running around and playing hungry hungry hippos. But I get it now. Guns kill people. That's their purpose. They kill. And what reason do we have to kill in this suburban place we live? None...it causes more danger than it does protection. The fact that people have a gun demonstrates that they have fear. What's more important is that where the fear is deriving from is death, the theoretical death of themselves and their family, which would inevitably be caused by a gun in the end.

You heard me. I said guns make more guns and perpetuate fear.

But maybe my younger self was right. Just because there is a gun, and people have fear, doesn't mean it will be used. People need placebos and things to set their mind at ease sometimes, is it really making me in danger? Have I crossed into the realm of over-fear? I mean, fearing death is one thing. Fearing guns is another. Fearing being in the far vicinity of one is worse. And as an odd fear, which I should address because I have, is fearing fear. Does this post not portray my fear of fear?

Living with nothing seriously threatening my life every day, I have learned to mostly ignore death. And when the subject of gun control comes up in politics I usually don't know what place to take my stance. But I do know that being held at gunpoint is a thing no one should experience.

We have come to far as a race to keep this simple and main forcefulness in everyday life...it's what is preventing us from moving on. Or maybe it is the only thing letting us move. If people weren't forced, by guns, to move in the same direction as each other politically and socially and technologically, would our technologies and social ideas be more widespread and intricate and developed? Or would they still be waffling around not knowing where to go? Would one person be in the same place that other person was a minute ago and then vice versa a few minutes later? Or are we actually evolving at the same rate, making us progress forward in the same way no matter if anyone is forcing us, by way of guns, to do so? Where would government and war be if we had no guns? (note: This is not about who was killed, even in large amounts, by guns that changed society, but how people have been able to make people do what they say by way of guns which changed society. Just in case you didn't follow what I said. )

I'm not sure if I made the point I wanted to. And I'm not providing any solution to the point you think I attempted to make. And I'm not disagreeing with the 2nd amendment, if that's somehow what you arrived at from the things said. I just dare you to disagree with what it is you found my point to be. I'm just giving my complaints and weirded out feelings and semi-disorganized tangent-like ramblings--something far from what I was originally going to say, but still did want to say at one point.