We Have Nothing To Fear...Nothing

‘There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.’ - Andre Gide

 

I was listening in on a chat yesterday where the two people were talking about the number of air tragedies in 2014. I was surprised when one of the women said ‘you wouldn’t get me on a plane again, they just aren’t safe anymore. Thus Air Asia business just makes it worse. No, I’ll stay at home or only go anywhere by train from now on”. 

It’s funny what drives our fears isn’t it? Sometimes it’s something that goes back to our childhood – a spider that seemed gigantic when we were three stays with us throughout our lives and no matter the size of the spider it always ‘appears’ gigantic and menacing as an adult, being thrown in the air by our favorite uncle when we were 4 stays in our mind and returns whenever we are high up somewhere etc etc. All irrational and easy to beat but often it’s as though we can’t quite let go.

So here’s a bit of myth busting for you:

·         3.2 BILLION (that’s 3,2000,000,000) people flew last year

·         1340 people were killed in a plane crash

·         1972 was the highest recorded number of air deaths – over 3000

·         The war years (1940s mostly) naturally had the highest number of crashes and proportionate number of deaths (ie less flights, less ‘souls’ on board per place)

·         Approx 1.24 million people die on roads worldwide each year (one person every 25 seconds)

·         1.5 million people die from diarrhoea annually worldwide

·         7.3 million people die from cardiac related illness

·         6.2 million people die from brain attacks (strokes)

·         Approx 6 million people die from tobacco related illness each year (some of these would be included in cardiac and stroke figures)

·         Between 200,00 and 500,000 die from influenza annually (hard to be definite as many influenza deaths are classified as lung infections, fevers etc)

While the last year seems to have been one disaster after another perception is not reality (rarely is – observe politics). There are risks in travelling by air, mainly ‘economy class flu’, DVT or flying bags from overhead lockers. But the risk is far greater every time we get in a car, cross a road, smoke a cigarette, eat some fatty food or sit next to someone with the flu. In fact we are probably better off flying everywhere than almost any other form of public transport.

Letting fear rule our lives or even determining our level of enjoyment is a folly and gets in the way of us experiencing life and it’s possibilities. It is usually irrational and more often ill informed. There is no doubt that the media and governments have a vested interest (and in the media’s case a market) to fuel fear. Radicals and ratbags, commentators and crackpots pounce on it and we often react without thinking, researching, asking questions, wondering ‘is there one more thing to this story that I need to know?’ We sadly rely on others to make our decisions for us, to ‘tell’ us what we need to know, to form our opinions and define our ‘shoulds’, 140 characters become our whole argument. The unique human gifts of critical thinking, free choice and reason are slowly shrivelling away because hey who needs those when someone else can decide everything for us? In this climate secrecy grows, facts are subsumed, national security and operational matters are trotted out to deny transparency and fear thrives.

There is always something to think about.

If only we would.