The Unforgettable Fires and Falls

I was just lying down trying to fall asleep when I remembered seeing a news segment many years ago about there being a fire in a dance club and people getting trapped and dying. According to ChatGPT, there was a very famous fire that happened in 2003 on February 20th. The band Great White was playing and their show included some pyrotechnics which ignited flammable sound insulation foam in the walls and ceilings around the stage. Apparently, there were 100 deaths and over 200 injuries that night. I remember hearing on the news that there were only one or two exits to the club and people got jammed in the exit and blocked it. I can’t imagine how horrific that would be, being trapped in a nightclub while it’s burning around you. Unimaginable way to die.

Sometimes I think of random things like that. I think about the families who probably still remember the incident. How most people probably have forgotten the incident. How so few people still think about the victims of that tragic event. These types of thoughts usually cause me to take a moment in remembrance of the victims and pray for their families. I then sometimes ponder the innumerable events that happen on a day-to-day basis which seem like horrific tragedies in the moment, but months or years down the line we all tend to forget about them.

Another such incident that I sometimes think about was one that I wasn’t yet born to witness. However, I heard about it in my teens. In 1987, Jessica “Baby Jessica” McClure who was 18 months old at the time fell into a well in Midland Texas. The rescue mission lasted at least 58 hours and was televised news across the country. I remember hearing that this incident was the beginning of the 24-hour news cycle that we now experience these days. Baby Jessica was saved on October 16th, which is wonderful. However, born from that baby’s mishap we all now have to endure a constant barrage of horrendous news stories 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

While I think that it’s good to stay informed, I also don’t think that this constant feed of negativity is healthy. I know that it’s not the sole cause of depression in most people but I do believe it’s an instigating factor that at least escalates depression.

There’s one news program that I enjoyed watching in the morning because they shared a mixture of positive and negative news stories from the day before. It was a morning show, so they obviously didn’t have any news to share from that day. I tried watching that show a couple times a week or two ago and now they seem to be focusing on what all the other news channels are focusing on which is sensationalist stories and selling products. Everybody is selling something.

If you’ve ever taken the time to consider why the news doesn’t show more positive or even neutral stories, share your conclusions in the comments. It’s intriguing to think what the world would be like if we weren’t constantly reminded of how negative everything that surrounds us is. Perhaps in a perfect world, there would be less negative news to share because people would have friendlier and happier dispositions from watching more upbeat news broadcasts. Yes, what I’m trying to say is that it could be self-perpetuating. If that’s the case, are we to blame for beginning the cycle or is the burden of fault placed on the television stations?

Ultimately, the root cause of many of the United States’ downfalls can be attributed to the relentless pursuit of wealth. This one is no different.

Greed.

It keeps me awake more nights than it ought to. I don’t altogether consider myself an overly greedy person, I will be honest here and say that the feeling has struck me once or twice in my life. It feels good to get what you want when you want it. Greed is something more, something deeper though. And it’s run amuck in the US. The haves want more and keep taking more from the have-nots. Tale through time.

I don’t know but I think that if people tried to set an intention to be less greedy, and I don’t mean giving everything away… maybe just not taking everything for themselves, the world would be a better place. There’s my two cents.