Fear and Drano

A friend forwarded one of those classic anxiety-provoking emails — the kind you are supposed to SEND TO EVERYONE ON YOUR MAILING LIST!!!!

No, it wasn’t the one about the latest virus that will chew up your hard drive and send your data to the Russian mafia. No, not the one about identity theft that you can avoid by turning off your electricity at the circuit breaker when you go to bed at night. No, not the one about the president being a socialist Kenyan whose jackbooted death panels are trying to kill your grandmother and make you pay for it with your own taxes. (Okay, I made those first two up.)

Nope, this one was about real bombs that real idiots can make with plastic bottles, Drano and a piece of aluminum foil. Some actual kids have lost actual fingers. So says Snopes.com, anyway.

The friend asked me what I thought about the email.  Here’s part of what I said:

I think people love scaring the shit out of other people. It gives them a sense of power and control over their otherwise powerless lives…  So they build stupid Drano bombs. Or they write panicky emails. Or they hold Tea Party rallies. Or they push conspiracy theories.

The internet is full of fearful people sending fearful information to all their friends.

We live in a world that seems to be driven by fear. And I think this is why. It gives the people who spread it control over us, And it makes them powerful. But it also gives us a focus for our anxiety.

The economy sucks. The future is wildly unpredictable. Everything  you thought you knew is wrong. And if you can focus that anxiety on something external, it helps you feel better.

We are such easy prey.

What I hope is that people stop worrying so much about minor problems and focus their anxiety on important ones: Climate change. Human rights. Funding education. Personally, as I told my friend,  I think the odds of my being blown up by a Drano bomb are pretty slim.