A Brief Connection Between Material and Man

Recently I took a trip down to our nice little mobile home in Florida. It's a fun place to stay every now and then but, we always seem to have some sort of complications when we go. The trip we took recently was no exception. We finally got carpeting put in on the living room floor; so I don't have to fret over stepping on any tacks or splinters. The main problem was the trailer we had to tow down there to carry our lawnmower. It made our gas guzzling Dodge Ram's MPG go from 11 or 12 MPG to a horrible 8.5 MPG. All in all the trip cost about $400 in gas alone.
On the way back the trailer hitch jolted off, and if it had not been for the chains holding the trailer to the bumper, someone could have died on that highway. Yes, the great American highway that I always speak of, filled with so many loose objects and potholes. The thought ran through my head that somewhere along the line this had happened to another family, and they did not have the chains to save a life hitched to the back of their vehicle. There is a saying that life hangs on a string but, thankfully life was hanging on a reinforced steel chain for someone that day.
Everyday the people of the world think of and see the horrible happenings of the world, and think "That could never happen to me." Well those people should also learn the phrase "Never say never." All it takes is an incident that is barely avoided and everyone learns a little bit more about themselves. Whether it's the religious side that comes on so strongly when the incident occurs, or the fearful side that makes us pull over to the side of the road and gasp in fear. No matter what the reaction, the action is always an act of fear showing itself. Like animals that become weary and aggravated when their territorial boundaries are broken, humans tend to become upset and threatened by anything that breaks their boundaries.
Our reaction to being robbed is not only the fact that our valuables have been lifted from our humble abodes but, that our space has been violated. Someone has ruined our comfort zone and it will never be the same. Children can get over this fear in a record amount of time because, everything is new and always changing, they do not have to connect with one thing for very long. When we become adults we grow more attached to the things we own. We work hard and take the time to make sure that the niceties are not tampered with. The fact is that we are all animals, we are all beasts on the inside, and it only takes a mere break in the chain to set that instinct free. We fight when we are challenged, we fear when our safety is broken, we weep when we are hit with something completely unexpected, we curse anything and everything over something that we do not understand.
There is no stopping this feeling, it is in our primal existence. We can say it is traced back to some childhood happening or catastrophic incident that we perceived. We can say that we are all "normal", and we can control anything that we need to. It is not unusual to want control, we all need a feeling of control of something. If we do not control a thing, then we are nothing. So in the end, my friends, do we all just become things? Sink your teeth into that one tonight.