After the Fact

While in attendance at a metal music festival I was observing some of the various suggestive graphics being flashed up on huge displays, all around the stage, during a well known "shock rocker's" performance.  I began to think about whether or not I should be critical of what was being displayed.  I was feeling a little uncomfortable and was thinking that these types of graphics were not necessary, especially since the music was really good.  I began wondering if and how this might affect the weaker minds of any one of the thousands of people that were witnessing the same thing that I was.  At that moment my sense of self-evaluation kicked in and a thread of thought began to unwind inside my mind.

• Am I being influenced by this?
• Why am I not being influenced by this?
• Who could be influenced by this?
• Would complaining or public denunciations of such acts help keep those people from being innocently put in situations like this?
• Why does it seem that society always takes a reactionary path and not a preventative one?
• Why do we prefer to whine and complain after something has happened when we did nothing to prevent it from happening?
• What could be done to help people to be able to understand the difference between show drama and real life?

My thoughts rested on the fact that we do not do enough education to young minds in the areas of good decision making, knowing right from wrong, knowing the difference between a truth and a lie and building a level of self confidence to be able to stand strong in beliefs and be able to admit when a mistake has been made.

It could be argued that the traditional education base of reading, writing and arithmetic is not enough and quite possibly never has been enough.  Science, geography, history and such, provide great knowledge and can exercise the mind but the key elements of forming the mind's ability to articulate life decisions, is missing.  Minds that have not been sufficiently trained can be defenseless when encountering unfamiliar or unique situations in life.  A mind without any training will be more likely to make a bad choice. 
 
A large portion of the lawyers, politicians and regulations that we all complain about, have had to be put in place because of an individual or group of individual's inability to make good decisions, to know right from wrong, to know the difference between the truth and a lie, not having a level of self confidence to stand strong in their beliefs or not being able to admit mistakes.  Children need this training when they are young.  They need it at a time before life has had a chance to impose its own random and sometimes brutal training on them.  They need it at a time when their brains are absorbing every little thing that they see, hear, smell, taste and feel.