Perspective

Many of you will already know about the terrorist attack on La Rambla in Barcelona, the youngest of the victims was reported to be just eight.

Barcelona is a truly beautiful place with a welcoming spirit and a creative culture.

Why anyone would want to attack it indiscriminately is beyond me.

Strange contrast

Yet within days of this lectures are reaching me about increasing regulation of online bullying.

While I do not agree with all the online abuse that has become a larger and larger feature of our everyday reality.

I am cautious of an over reaction.

The suggestion was that online abuse would lead to a Charlottesville situation.

Scars

I realize mental abuse builds up in a person and can too be truly damaging. 

Only, you can turn a computer off, you can ignore the comments, you can delete the e-mails.

I would rather focus still be focused on more traditional bullying, which leaves faces bruised and families missing a loved one.

Fear

I was lucky enough as a teenager to be told that news reports tend to paint the world bleakly.

The world seems more threatening because it focuses on bad things.

This is an invaluable world view.

Sadly I feel too far from the effects of this sane view point.

Losing sanity?

Too much media exposure and hyped up talk has left me occasionally falling into irrational panics.

Yet this seems to happen to me when things are safer.

When I am actually faced with more genuinely worrying situations I seem to deal with them better.

All in the mind

I am beginning to wonder whether this is unresolved issues related to feeling threatened in the past or actually due to news exposure.

Does listening to negative reporting drive this panic in my mind to a larger degree than finding myself in a frightening situation?

I'm beginning to think that it does and my best defence seems to be turning off the news...