Straight from the (Jack)Ass' mouth

run for your life? i think not.

the other day i was watching "stark raving mad" on star movies. fyi it's a straight-to-video production with sean william scott (aka stifler of American Pie fame)... i actually liked it... but anyway there was one thing about the movie that jumped out at me.

it was about fear.

backstory: the protagonist (scott) is facing a remarkably difficult - and potentially fatal - night. things get out of hand and the shit pretty much hits the proverbial fan. despondent and anxious he turns to his friend for advice.

his friend digs up a nugget from having passed up the hustler channel for animal planet. paraphrased: lions stalk gazelle in the african grasslands. the lions pounce, the gazelles - seeing the lions - turn away and scatter in panic, and the lions jump... next scene: the lions are having lunch al fresco.

anyway, a nature documentary cameraman comes face to face with a lion. first thing that registers in his brain: FEAR. his first instinct is to bolt. he thinks of the gazelle. so he runs like a mad man...

straight at the lion...

and chases it away.

moral? it isn't worth the energy to run away. eventually we get confronted by a problem (and at times even potentially or metaphorically fatal ones.) we always have the option to run. but left unresovled they stalk incessantly, eventually run us down, and surely bite us in the back.

taking these (problems) head on gives us no assurance of safety or success. the only certainty is resolution and that alone is sufficient justification for abandoning our tendencies toward flight.

television pioneer and rags-to-riches-prime-example David Sarnoff, was quoted to have said (in a stark contrast of imagery but in the same spirit), "we cannot banish dangers, but we can banish fears. we must not demean life by standing in awe of death." death or destruction or humiliation or whatever fear metamorphoses for each of us. run at it and we may just walk away from it. unscathed or bloodied at least we're not running anymore.

posted by Peejay @ 6/07/2004 12:05:00 AM