Feeling Safe

Studies have shown that the people living directly under a volcano are on average less worried about that volcano exploding than the people who live further away but still in the danger zone. What keeps them feeling safe is partly that there is no cause to worry, as if it ever does happen it will already be too late and they will be dead. And partly that, if they were more worried about it they would have moved and would not be in that section of the survey. What keeps most of us feeling safe (the ones that live in the suburbs surrounding the city.) is that we don’t know what is going on around us unless we know people directly involved in it. That is to say, if we listened to police radio, we would hear of some sort of disturbance within 3 blocks of our house within the hour. But we don’t know about it, even though it’s so close to home, unless it is us, or a friend, that is involved. What makes us feel really safe, is that we hear the occasional horror story on the news, some close by, this reassures us that we do hear what is happening and although it’s horrifying, it makes us feel that that is all that is happening. It makes us feel safe, although we may not be. But this is not necessarily a bad thing, because like the people under the volcano, when things erupt, there won’t be time to prepare anyway. There is no need to worry, we are not as safe as we think, but we need not think that we are any less safe than we ever were before, and nothing has happened to us yet.