Today, somebody in the town I work in committed a murder.
I won't get into details, because that goes against what this post is about.
It's about being morbid. Being fascinated with murder, especially gruesome murder, seems, to me, to be disturbing in a whole other sort of way.
When people say, "Can you believe the wacko who did this?"
I always want to respond with "What about the wacko who's obsessed with them?"
Without realizing it, I went into the New Year with a resolution that had hardened over the past year with the onslaught of the Caylee Anthony trial.
I simply don't put up with morbid.
The same way a religious person might not be put up with gossip or profanity being thrown about around them, I refuse to entertain morbid rehashings of murder and gore.
It just doesn't seem healthy.
People are so quick to blame fiction (movies, video games) with violence, but they never blame people's innate fascination with violence--real-life violence--for being the real reason our society is starting to resemble a Roman Colosseum on "Christians vs. Lions" day.
I've never heard anybody talk about a violent movie for hours on end, and yet, I've had people come into the library where I work thoroughly over-joyed to talk about the specifics of whatever crime they saw on the news that day.
I understand that part of this might be human nature, but shouldn't we at least try to fight it?
Why is a violent movie so frowned upon by older and more conservative people, yet a violent crime is fair game at any dinner party? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
I've decided I'm just not going to listen to any of it anymore, and that should be my right. I realize I can't go inside a bubble whenever there's a big murder trial, but I can at least ask that friends or co-workers keep talk about beheading and dismemberment to a minimum.
If second-hand smoke can poison your lungs, then morbid discussions are probably poisoning something else entirely.
Or maybe next time, I'll just ask if we can change the subject.
I won't get into details, because that goes against what this post is about.
It's about being morbid. Being fascinated with murder, especially gruesome murder, seems, to me, to be disturbing in a whole other sort of way.
When people say, "Can you believe the wacko who did this?"
I always want to respond with "What about the wacko who's obsessed with them?"
Without realizing it, I went into the New Year with a resolution that had hardened over the past year with the onslaught of the Caylee Anthony trial.
I simply don't put up with morbid.
The same way a religious person might not be put up with gossip or profanity being thrown about around them, I refuse to entertain morbid rehashings of murder and gore.
It just doesn't seem healthy.
People are so quick to blame fiction (movies, video games) with violence, but they never blame people's innate fascination with violence--real-life violence--for being the real reason our society is starting to resemble a Roman Colosseum on "Christians vs. Lions" day.
I've never heard anybody talk about a violent movie for hours on end, and yet, I've had people come into the library where I work thoroughly over-joyed to talk about the specifics of whatever crime they saw on the news that day.
I understand that part of this might be human nature, but shouldn't we at least try to fight it?
Why is a violent movie so frowned upon by older and more conservative people, yet a violent crime is fair game at any dinner party? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
I've decided I'm just not going to listen to any of it anymore, and that should be my right. I realize I can't go inside a bubble whenever there's a big murder trial, but I can at least ask that friends or co-workers keep talk about beheading and dismemberment to a minimum.
If second-hand smoke can poison your lungs, then morbid discussions are probably poisoning something else entirely.
Or maybe next time, I'll just ask if we can change the subject.
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