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Confession. Today’s scratchings might call into question my judgment.

However, if there is a positive to this, it’s that probably not many people read this column anyway, truth to tell.

Moving on. In our attempts to understand, to know the unknowable, we mortals seem to have to personify divinity. That is, endow that higher power with human characteristics.

It is in that way I suggest this: We seem to enjoy watching activities that must bring tears to the Creator’s eyes. How so, Old Timer?

Well, now. I’m referring to ultimate fighting; and football at certain levels. You know, injuries. Some that carry life-long debilitating consequences.

That brain we were all given rests in a sack of fluid. As such it’s not invulnerable to damage. Football, at the professional and college levels, and the youngest youth levels, is a problem. Not only are the brains at risk, certain body joints can be affected as well. (Note, I didn’t say “impacted”!)

If you don’t think many, or perhaps most people love watching violence, real or portrayed, on television or on some of their many tech devices, you really must live in the “back of beyond.”

Just make a quick sweep of whichever television channels you receive, and note how many offer good old violence. You know, maiming, inflicting pain, destruction of property. It’s America’s psychic diet, and we seem to be drawn to it, or else advertisers would not spend obscene amounts of money to bring it to us.

Does watching all this mayhem really influence how we think, how we perceive things? Let me put it this way: Do those who put up the big bucks to advertise their products think there are any benefits to be derived from such staggering expenditures? Friends, they don’t just “think” there is, they know there is. Rocket science this isn’t.

Can this blemish on our culture be changed, significantly, or even just a little? Don’t ask me. As a man of very modest intellectual capabilities such a question falls far beyond my ability to answer. Far beyond.

The first thing that would need to happen (I dare to suggest) is that people would be interested in and willing to change their television and film watching proclivities. Therein, as old Will said, “lies the rub.” When I can’t recall or come up with who exactly said something, I just attribute it to the Bard of Avon. Works for me.

The world of concussions, torn ligaments, fractured or shattered bones, is

 

not going away. A non-hopeful viewpoint, but true. Alas.

No, I don’t think the media should not report the violence that is almost always a part of real news. We can’t hide from that. Such sad stories must be told. But providing fictional, gratuitous, graphic portrayals of violence, so ubiquitously across the channels?

Well, now. You know where I stand.

How about you? APROPOS – “The hardest thing to change is a mind.”

-Anon