Fear and loathing in the new world

Media reflects the world. Did you know that?
TV, film, novels and theater, tend to move with trends. Some are perhaps making predictions; apocalyptic futures, zombies, nuclear holocaust. Fear.
It's a very good business to be in.
If you create an environment of terror, you can manipulate people. It's easy. Just broadcast a 24 hour channel (it doesn't matter if its web, radio, or TV) and scare the hell out of your fans.

In essence, we are still primal. We still maintain the fear reaction of flight or fight. It's a survival mechanism. I'm sure there was a time in our evolution that it came in handy.

Via the internet, we can subscribe to any type of fear we desire. Yes, we desire it.
The movie industry alone has made billions off of it. I know you can name horror films by the dozen. If not, just surf channels on television. At the moment, fear and horror, seem to be the product in demand.

I can't go an evening without cringing and trying to find something that doesn't slap me in the face with graphic violence. It's just who we are.

Ironically, the industry of love- is lacking. Love has become passe. A cliche.
Straight sex combined with violence is beginning to go hand in hand. The entertainment industry continues to cross genres. Horror is now a standard viewing guide to violence towards women. It has been for generations. Nothing has changed. Violence towards women is an industry, a thriving one. I didn't think it could get worse. But it will.

Where does that leave individuals who want to continue to battle for love? Love that some deem as sinful, should be illegal, should be punishable by prison, or death?

Are we supposed to hide in the shadows now? Allow fear and loathing to dominate everything in a society so polarized it has become a dark mirror of our worst nightmares realized?

What's my new plan? Am I supposed to write about how this current political climate has made me feel? Pour out my angst and fear in my next novel? Do I begin to reflect the rising anger, the rising hatred, the violence that never goes away?

It's hard to write fluffy love stories at the moment. Yes, I need to escape, like everyone else. I escape in my work to a world of tolerance, understanding, love...I have to. It's my primal 'flight' mechanism.

I can't live in reality. It's too frightening.
The fear mongering has worked. I imagine a far away place, one with no forwarding address. Isolated from the current tide of terror.

But, there is nowhere to run.

That means, I have to stay here and fight.

I have been fighting for decades. There is always a cause.

So? Will the next book I write be about fear? About stress? About what 2017 and the four years to come have in store for us?

It's a hard decision, being influenced by the media and everything I see every day, no matter how I try to shield myself from it.

I may be a dreamer, but I will always believe in love, in kindness, and in tolerance.

Fear. The new normal.

Be careful out there. It's a dangerous world.