| Khuutra said: "His fear was transferred upon you." I would argue that this was just me, and my inherent sense of self-preservation. Most people have that! I certainly wasn't thinking of how it would hurt him, save in some small part: it was more that I didn't like the idea of having my limbs broken or being choked to death with my own shirt (since the collar of a shirt is always the last thing to tear, don't you know). I understand what you are saying, but that isn't my experience. "People don't realize that drugs are dangerous. There is something inherently different between the two situations." This I will accept: I'm pretty sure everyone's classmates in high school went through a phase where they all did that chest compression thing to bring on a head rush. |
How does anyone realize that anything - drugs, loose clothing near fast, powerful moving objects, disobeying traffic laws, and the like - can be dangerous? It usually comes through 2 ways: observation, or to infer. I don't think its fear, its infering that the plausible outcome of participating in a set of behaviour may have a negative outcome, given enough time is utilized. For example, if he wore loose clothing once near an axle, he may not have had any major issues. However, there have been accidents around such objects grabbing and destroying limbs due to loose clothing. There is no difference between that and drugs. We can infer danger, but until some people (unfortunately) observe danger, they will not react.
That unfortunately is human stupidity. I don't buy 'People don't realize drugs are dangerous'. Maybe it's American culture, but we usually do see a lot of messages waxing about the dangers of drug usage. Maybe it has desensitized people, but the advisory warnings are still there. If people want to shrug those warnings, its their fault.
If you told a child 'Don't play with matches, or a lighter' - would you be attempting to transfer fear, or trying to infer that there is a strong correlation between misuse of fire-generating devices and household fires? It's possible that the former may be the case, but the latter is the truth.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
