March Madness

Is it me or is there a lot of craziness going around? I mean, several people have gone mad in the last year. Like the zeitgeist has caught them, and they lost their footing in the whirlwind of insanity. One of my oldest and dearest friends disappeared in paranoiac fear of all things electronic. I'm not even sure what happened as she wasn't making a lot of sense, but it had something to do with Second Life and people tracking her. News comes of someone losing the plot on the weekly these days.

Not that it's surprising. With this country the way it is, and a Venn Diagram of Insanity/Stupidity/ Greed/Hatred that switches dominant sectors often, what else could happen? 

I've been contemplating whether it was good or bad to shield children from reality as we did "back in my day". Nowadays kids grow up with a lot of harsh real world from the beginning. And as soon as they're amongst other kids, they get those kids' realities added which can be traumatic to witness. Then there are Smartphones, texting, the internet and social media, all avenues for bullying, trafficking and drugs. We took the nastiness our schoolmates could dish out, but not like this. Online talk is conducive to loathsome conduct that never transpires face to face. We had schoolyard fistfights if someone said things that nasty- not that that was good either- but what do you do when faceless, nameless bullies pile on you? Get depressed, withdrawn, hopeless. And then a white coat comes along and diagnoses some insurance code and prescribes something for changing of the nerves or brain. 

So would it be better to raise kids in a cloud of lies and protection? We had so many realizations to digest as we grew up, so many pretenses to recognize, and then discern what was truth. But we did have relatively easier times in which to be kids. Even if it wasn't, we felt the world was generally safe as long as we didn't do anything stupid. I don't know a child who feels safe anymore. So was ignorance bliss? 

This stuff comes to mind lately as another friend's child committed suicide. That makes 4 over the last 6 years. 2 of them left babies of their own to grow up without a father. 

I have no answers, just questions and observations, and grief.

Tell someone they're wonderful today.

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