Horrors

People tend to be perverse creatures. Even the best of us  have our little quirks.

If things become too safe at demolition derbies, or big races, attendance tends to flag. If magic acts are death defying people flock to see them. Evel Knieval was popular because what he did was truly dangerous. Horror movies and novels have a macabre hold over people. The circus did not just perform lovely acrobatics. It had man eating lions, sword swallowers and people working without a net.

There is something horribly wonderful about the adrenaline coursing through our veins. Those of us not brave enough, or foolish enough to want to be the death defier can experience terror  through movies, books and dangerous sports.

Being scared makes us feel safer, more loving, more appreciative of everything else. Vicarious thrills really work for most of us.

That is not such a bad thing. We are hard wired to experience this. Otherwise we might have to fall off a cliff to know it would be terrible, or step into the fire, or meet a scary person in the dark in order to know to avoid these things.

So good people watch and read scary stuff all the time -- even many of those who profess to hate it.

Watch your great aunt's soap operas, the violence is less physical, but it's there all the same and bad deeds abound in toddler's cartoons.  And I doubt if this is a new revelation. Look at the Bible.

Humans have a mean streak.