One of my deepest fears is being eaten by another human being. Cannibalism. I believe cannibalism rarely happens. Still from time to time news reports detail the atrocious act of a human eating another human. I’ve had the fear of being eaten by another human since I was a young boy. I must have learned the meaning of cannibal on a television documentary. Cartoons and sitcoms were my favorite shows to watch on TV. Cartoons and sitcoms were not always on TV in the 1980’s. Not like today with internet enabled television where you can choose from a vast and expanding library of videos and live broadcasts to watch 24 hours a day. In the 1980’s if a scary show was on TV I’d usually look for a different show to watch. The horror genre was never a favorite of mine. I don’t have a clear memory of when I learned that cantabile’s exist or graphic details of a show on TV that explained cannibalism. When I learned about cannibalism the message became engrained in my mind. I don’t often worry about being eaten by another human. I’ve been writing about what I fear in my journal recently and it felt right to open up about this fear I have not expressed before now.
What motivates a human to eat another human is beyond my comprehension. Throughout history incidents of starvation have forced some humans to eat weaker humans to survive.
Those incidents are few and far between. While starvation is a reality in places around the world many of the people who starve to death don’t resort to cannibalism trying to survive.
The thought of cannibalism is revolting. I believe cannibals are insane human predators. Cannibalism is not a major problem in the world, but when it happens the grotesque news creates memories that last.
It’s hard to shake this topic now that I began writing about cannibalism. It’s a very sad and devastating topic. Now that I’m focusing on the topic I think the first time I heard about it was when I was listening to my mom tell the story of Hansel and Gretel.
In the 80’s and 90’s suspense and violent action movies involving the US Government often told a story of international tension and deception that lead the starring Actor of the movie on a journey to save American lives by neutralizing a foreign threat. Often the threat was a foreign government or rogue militia with a nuclear weapon. Towards the end of many of these movies the star Actor gains control of the nuclear weapon and stops the countdown in less than 10 seconds from nuclear missiles aimed at America being launched.
All this happens while in a movie scene back at home in United States many men and women are at their computer work stations in a large conference room watching the drama unfold on a large screen on a wall. The large screen is divided into many smaller screens. Each screen has a completely different video playing on it.
This is often how many of these movies ended. A threat is neutralized and the men and women at work at their desks in a large conference room looking to the large screen on the wall get the good news and stand and rejoice, clapping and cheering on the star Actor of the movie. The day is saved in America in the movie. This movie ending “theme” that repeats in many movies had a lasting effect.
Society and technology has morphed and transformed. Often the first time people watch movies are on their personal computer at home or their television at home. With YouTube and Netflix the effect these movies from the 80’s and 90’s had leads to current day and the internet that was not available for the public until the mid 90’s
In those movies each one of those frames playing videos on a large screen represented an important matter. There was too many videos to watch them all at once and that was obvious watching the scene in the movie. Multiple screens added a backdrop layer of suspense to the details of the actors in a conference room scene. Some of these movies were comedies. Most were not. Most of the movies were about very real issues people face in life and consequences to actions. The movies were microcosms of news reports.
Now the multiple screens are on YouTube and Netflix. NetFlix is for watching movies and documentaries. YouTube is more versatile. Some video’s that show a preview on YouTube are similar to junk mail. Garbage and clutter. Unwanted visual and audio information. As they say one mans trash is another mans treasure. There are video previews that are valued. Something interesting, a topic that is important. It’s up to the visitor at YouTube to input data for YouTube to locate videos based on the input. Another way of previewing videos is selecting the refresh button on the web browser and a whole new screen of video previews appears.
POTUS Donald Trump would have appealed to me when I was an elementary school student. The bully mentality meant a lot back then. Would he have appealed to me in a good way or a bad way I do not know. Some kids bullied me at recess and I bullied other kids at recess. It didn’t help. It wasn’t good. Bullying happened and it was a big deal. It hurt and then I hurt my peers. As I grew I learned to avoid violent confrontations. On TV seemed to be an everlasting fight between people of all ages and races locally and nationally and around the world. This was the late 1980’s. I was 10 years old.
The cold war was grinding to a close. At 10 years old I didn’t know what the cold war meant. But I did know that the last of it was there and then and that it became the recent past. Later I learned that the cold war was a build up of nuclear weapons and bombs and that eventually United States and Russia agreed to reduce their stockpiles of military weapons. The reduction of weapons deescalated the tensions between the two countries. No missiles were launched, and no bombs were dropped during the cold war. On television the old war was world war 2 and on television shows from much further in history documented world war 1. The old war, world war 2 was not ancient and it was a war fought by my grandfathers both serving in the US Military.
My grandfather who was alive at the time looked and sounded to me at 10 years old, very old. At that young age, many very old people looked like they had been in a war. They survived and it looked like war took a lot out of them. Later I learned that old age is natural and what everybody experiences over many years of growing. Old age has nothing to do with war. There are many story tellers who are elders and many of their stories are about topics other than war. Ancient civilization, for example in America and Africa and Europe and in Asia looked different in each continent.
Humans from different races around the world lived in smaller communities. There were battles and violence and there was also peace. Humans have evolved learning how to live and work together. Humans living in community learned to plant crops and grow large scale agriculture. This is how many people around the world are fed to this day.
Despite all the advances in engineering and modern architecture and science and technology, there are still many human problems society and civilization have not solved. There is plenty of food to feed every man, woman and child. And every day people go hungry, are malnourished and die of starvation. Health care has come so far since electricity was harnessed and the light bulb was invented. So many inventions have been made including the locomotive train and railroad system. The motor that runs on fuel. Airplanes and satellites. Still despite all the industrial advances, people are left to die alone when not enough trained paramedics and available ambulances are ready and able to service a region.
Problems haven’t stopped happening. Problems people have in 2025 didn’t occur 10 years ago. Pollution in the environment causes problems for humans and animals. Pollution causes people to get sick. Toxins in the environment make some places unsafe to live for humans and animals where the only thing that live are cockroaches. Mysterious illnesses such as covid effect the global population for several years and although a vaccine helps to reduce and stop the disease the origin of it is elusive. Was covid created in a laboratory in a city in China that leaked or was it from a little black winged flying bat that defecated on agriculture and spread in food?
Solutions in 2025 are created with Artificial Intelligence on a computer and on a cell phone. Personal computers and cellphones didn’t exist when I was 10 years old. A remote controlled television was a luxury. Televisions and computer screens took up more space and were the shape of boxes. A movie was first viewed in a large theatre projected onto a screen the size of a large wall. How movies are shared has changed a lot. Many movies are not shown in movie theatres. Many movies are first viewed on televisions, computers, cellphones and tablets.
Email and instant texts and video chats and virtual meetings are often the fastest way to communicate with people. Long distance phone calls are of the past. Limited minutes on cellphone service are of the past. Music unites people locally, nationally and around the world. Music is also used in politics and while it can spread patriotism it can also spread messages of hate and fear and violence and racism. Music is loved and loathed, celebrated and shunned. Music is powerful, use it wisely.
Interest or not 