Free Range Thinker

I was reading the devotion for July 1 from J. Sidlow Baxter’s Awake, My Heart. The last copyright date in this book is 1994 – but its age and continued relevance to current day life is sometimes more profound than if I had read it back then – when the pages were newly drafted.

If you didn’t know, this devotion is the basis for one of my other blogs – NoOtherRock. Reading a section of this day’s devotion inspired me to draft this post – considering many recent events. The passage reads as follows:

In all the human story there were never distractions of louder gaiety on the one hand, and of deeper gravity on the other. Life was never so fast or complex. Politics, finance, cliques, slogans, were never so clever, complicated, or deceptive. The status quo never seemed more shakily susceptible to violent disruption. This is the age of mental and nervous disorders, of druggist shops, sleeping pills and psychiatry. This is the twentieth century apostasy of Christendom from the evangelical faith; of moral breakdown, of repudiated sanctions, of adolescent unchastity, of increased divorce, of tyrannical trade-unionisms, of totalitarianisms, and syndicated crime.

Wow. That was from a book with 1994 as the most recent copyright date, with the original being 1964. To put things into a little perspective, in 1994 I was a senior in high school. Very few folks had personal computers in their homes and if they did, even fewer had any idea what the Internet was. I purchased my first computer in 1995 after graduating high school and basically verbally assaulting a store clerk at Best Buy because they would not accept my check because a computerized system said an 18 year-old was too much risk.

Not long after that, I became a Christian and have sought to move toward the slant of good moral development and stronger Christ-centered growth. Mind you, I have a long way to go – but an unfortunate reality is that much of society has seemingly drifted the other direction at a much more rapid pace.

Where are we going as a civilization?

I am not even beginning to place blame on the Internet or technology – but it amazes me that Baxter offered these observations well before the World Wide Web, cell phones, iPods, PDAs, Pay-Per-View, reality television, blogs and a host of other things and events that have further exaserbated the society he depicts.

Nor am I calling Baxter a prophet. Rather, I am wondering how much worse it will get before it gets better – if it will.

I think specifically to the recent murder-suicide of professional wrestler Chris Benoit. If you are unfamiliar with the story, just do a simple search for “Chris Benoit” and you will find thousands of articles relating to the story.

I bring this up for two reasons.

The first is the fact that I have seen my website hits/visits more than triple during the month of June, 95% due to the man’s terrible actions – and the general public who are thirsting for information. A blog that I discontinued about six months ago and really only posted to about fifteen times (ProWrestlingPages) has been landed upon ten-fold what it ever had!

When I reviewed the keywords that produced the traffic, at the top of the list is “dead wrestlers,” “wrestlers who have died,” “Vince McMahon,” and a host of similar words and phrases.

The second reason I bring this tragedy up is because I personally cannot stop thinking about it. I think about what might have been going through Benoit’s mind as everything unfolded. I wonder if he was of sane mind at the time or if some substance he had taken of form of mental instability had taken control of his mind.

In no way do I sympathize with him, but I wonder how much of his actions were “real” to him.

I know and have lived with people who have heard voices either due to mental impairment or substance abuse. I have seen the mess and the paranoia it creates. It is like they are characters of dreams that are so real to them, that there is no differentiating between reality and fiction.

Somewhat ironic, if you watched the first season of Dirt on FX, you are familiar with the character of Don Konkey, who suffers from schizophrenia. He gets to a point where his hallucinations are so real to him, they are comforters. Yet, they attempt to convince him that he must kill his boss (Lucy). He fights and argues with his hallucinations – so much so, that he travels to a desert in a mad attempt to escape them (and make sure he doesn’t harm his friend).

Lucy searches for and finds Don, and gets him to a hospital where he receives proper medical treatment for his ailment. Later, Lucy is stabbed by a rival and left for dead. Lucy calls Don for help. When he arrives, his fear is that he did in fact kill Lucy. The show and the season ends with Don holding his boss/friend as he endures the mental anguish and guilt he feels.

It wasn’t long ago, I had posted about Mr. McMahon’s “character” being assassinated during Monday Night Raw – and the blurring of fiction and reality they spun by distributing real press releases to real media regarding the death of a fictional character.

In a sad twist, Mr. McMahan had to go on television later and explain to a viewing public that his character death was scripted but that in reality, Chris Benoit and his family were no longer among the living.

It frightens me to consider the notion that we are entering into an age where someone must have reality and make-believe explained to them. It frightens me to consider the very real possibility that we as a people are becoming so desensitized to vileness and disturbing actions that they are becoming entertainment and commonplace.

It frightens me to know that my children will be living in a world ten times worse than this when they are my age.

[tags]Civility, Pro Wrestling, Reality, Truth, Chris Benoit, J. Sidlow Baxter, Metal Illness, Hallucinations, Homicide, Murder, Suicide, Dirt[/tags]

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