Do they mean it yet?

During recent weeks, local Tulsa television newscasts seem to come wrapped in yellow crime scene tape. Real crimes in which real people have been hurt.

Now, I do enjoy a number of the Law & Order-type programs. I know the difference. One is fantasy and one isn’t. For that difference to matter, I have to be able to tell which is which.

Let’s assume I find the idea of actual crime in my neighborhood threatening; anxiety provoking. I watch our local news and think “Holy Crud!” I watch Law & Orders, the good guys tend to win and I feel better.

In behavioral theory, programing like the Law & Orders will reduce my anxiety as long I recognize they are fantasy. The instant I begin to believe it is reality, then my anxiety will increase. The key is my perception of my environment.

If I perceive a crime presentation to be true my fear responses deepen; my anxiety increases. If I judge it as unlikely to be true, to be fantasy, then I find it less menacing.

How do you respond when a local television anchor says, “Dismemberment.”? I cringe.

I learned a great deal about environmental perception from a kindergartener, Josh, that once lived behind us. Josh and I would sit in the shade of a large pine tree on the steps that descended from our lawn down to the sidewalk. We would talk and try to toss pine cones into a bucket strategically place on the sidewalk.

Josh and I were fully engaged in our game when I heard his mother call him. “Josh, come home.” Josh just kept tossing. She called again, “Josh, come home, dinnertime.” Josh still didn’t respond.

After this second time I said, “Josh, I think I heard your mother calling.”

Josh, not missing at toss, said, “She doesn’t mean it yet.” I thought, “Huh.”

Shortly came the call, “JOSH!” Josh was right. There was a distinct difference in her voice.

Now, Josh got up, dusted himself off and declared, “I gotta go now.” He happily skipped toward his home.

Knowledge makes the environment more predictable. Where do you stand on predictability? Personally, I do better when I know what to expect.

I’m not suggesting that we don’t have to teach our children to manage unpredictable, unstable environments. We do. As Wee Bobby Burns, my favorite Scottish poet and reprobate, is said to have suggested, “We must teach children to deal with a life of uncertainty.”

Coke fizz and peanuts and back porches make most things look better. Crime is a part of our life. I don’t like that much. Maybe just the rate of television reporting of crime is high. Still when I hear dismemberment or each victim was shot in the back of the head, I cringe. It seems far too real. But we don’t choose our fears, they choose us.

Old age is the most unexpected of all things that can happen to a man. – James Thurber

Hal McBride writes a column, Just Thinkin’, published each week.