The upsides of religion

I am an atheist. The concept of a loving, all-powerful God is not something I can accept as I look around and see the most appalling suffering all over the world. Where I differ from famous atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitches, however, is where they draw a thick, black line – religion and everything bad on one side, science and everything good on the other. I wish life was really so clear cut!

Religion has a lot to offer, and those who would create a happily secular society must recognise the positives – they are at the heart of the ongoing success of religion, and in many ways at the heart of our societies.

Religions are a focal point of community. (I will mostly use Christian groups as examples here, because I am more familiar with them, but the tenets apply very firmly to all religions that I know of.) Churches provide an instant point of welcome to newcomers in a neighbourhood. Many refugees arriving in Australia find themselves drawn to the heart of a religious community, provided with food, friendship and all manner of assistance.

Studies in the USA have shown that people who identify as religious (independent of which religion) are more charitable, at least in the financial sense of the word. They donate  substantially more to charity, on average, than those who identify as atheist or agnostic. They are also more likely to donate their time and energy, volunteering in all sorts of benevolent capacities.

These are averages, of course – I know atheists who volunteer, and Christians who don’t.  There are good people and bad in all circles of life, and in all groups. But it makes sense that to claim membership of a group that has charity as one of its central tenets (as most, if not all, religions do) increases the likelihood of a person being actively charitable.

Many atheists choose to throw the baby out with the bath water. There is a militant tendency to declare religion to be close minded, intolerant, and the root of all evil. Which is interestingly ironic as it is an impressively close minded and intolerant point of view. There are certainly religious groups that use their religions to justify fatwas, pogroms, or simply mindless discrimination, but these are the loud minority. If you listen closely and impartially to public debate you quickly discover that religious groups are among the loudest supporters of, for example, gay marriage, social justice, and racial and gender equality. Loud and visible on the far right of politics, religion is equally vocal, but perhaps less newsworthy, on the liberal left.

Religion has always played a strong role in social justice. While particular sects have sometimes been associated with the elevation of a chosen few, many religious explicitly champion social justice and pledge themselves to help the poor and underprivileged. Such organisations are often the ones who shelter the homeless, feed the hungry and clothe the needy. This is not surprising. All religions that I know of have this kind of charity as one of their central tenets. It’s a ‘there but for the grace of God’ kind of thing. Religions counsel against hubris, arrogance and selfishness. While religious people don’t always put this into practice perfectly, I suspect this is more of a human failing than a religious one.

It is foolish, naive, and indeed intolerant and discriminatory to declare that religions are wholly negative. We can learn a lot from the charitable and community-building work of religions the world over.

Help!

Have you been offered help recently, only to refuse automatically with a “No, I’m fine thanks,”  “I’m ok, I can manage,” or some similar, knee-jerk reaction?

I sometimes even find myself getting cranky about offers of help, against my will and my better judgement, as if the suggestion that I could use a little help carries with it an implication that I can’t cope on my own.

The very words are telling. “I can manage…” “I’m fine…” Yet nobody said I couldn’t manage, or that I wasn’t fine. They merely offered to help. The best advice we ever received as new parents was “when someone offers you help, take it!!!” And yet I rarely, if ever, managed to put those words into practice. Even when my husband shattered his collarbone and was out of action for weeks on end when our oldest was just 8 months old, I still found it difficult, if not impossible, to accept help from anyone – much less ask for it.

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody’s help in any way.
But now these days are gone, I’m not so self assured,
Now I find I’ve changed my mind and opened up the doors.

The Beatles, Help!

As I get older, I am beginning to recognise that accepting an offer of help can be almost as much a charitable act as the offer itself. When we accept someone’s help we become a little closer to them, and allow them to get a little closer to us. The very acceptance of the offer contains an implicit respect for their skills and abilities. In saying yes, we are also saying “You have something to offer me, and I accept your role in my life.”

In contrast when we say “No,” we are saying “I am independent, I don’t need you, and I don’t want your help.”

Being independent is held up in Western society as the pinnacle of personal achievement. We are proudly independent.  We push our children to be independent. Those who are dependent attract pity or even sneers. While I accept the value of being self-reliant, I think we take the concept too far, and isolate ourselves in our eagerness to be seen to be coping.

The old saying “it takes a village to raise a child” doesn’t go far enough. I believe it takes a village to stay sane, to be human – to have a community. In helping each other we create a complex web of interaction and, yes, interdependence, that is far stronger than a single thread standing alone. That web is remarkably sustaining. It can support us in times of trauma, and allow us to support others.

Lean on me, when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on

Bill Withers, Lean on me.

Accepting help from someone is not an admission that we can’t cope. It’s a way of building community. It makes it easier for others to ask us for help in the future. My instinct is to wait until I have hit the wall before asking for help. Yet there are no prizes for going it alone. No medals for complete independence. If I accept help in the first place, I know that I am less likely to hit the wall in the long run.

We don’t lose by accepting offers of help. I think we actually lose a lot more by refusing them.

Tell her about it

Big events tend to prompt us to tell people how we feel about them. There is something about a significant birthday, a wedding, or perhaps leaving a workplace, that prompts us to open up and express our appreciation. Some people become eloquent in Christmas cards. Others prefer to maintain a stoic, dignified silence. Some show their feelings with hugs, others keep a safe, self-contained distance.

Tell her about it
Tell her all your crazy dreams
Let her know you need her
Let her know how much she means

I tend to the expressive side (some would argue excessively so), yet when my cousin, Chris, died earlier this year, I found myself wondering whether he really knew what he meant to me. Yesterday I cleared his immense book collection out of his house and on my uncle’s instructions I donated it to the school I work at. It’s an incredible, eclectic collection, and I fiercely regret the opportunity to give him a hard time about some of it, and to share and revel in other sections with him. I’ve learnt a lot about him that I didn’t know, and been reminded of how much we had in common.

Chris and I tended to express ourselves in hugs, but we left the words largely unsaid. Sometimes long established relationships are the hardest to change. His death has reminded me how important it is to get our feelings out into the open. To push past our natural shyness and reticence, and whether face to face or in writing, to express our appreciation and affection for the people around us. Waiting for the big events can leave us deprived of the opportunity.

Telling someone that they are important to you, that you care about them, or how much their support has meant to you, can feel like a risk sometimes. What if they don’t feel the same way? What if they laugh, or are embarrassed, or if it makes things uncomfortable? I won’t pretend I haven’t got it wrong sometimes – being expressive can alarm people when they’re not ready for it, not used to it, or don’t reciprocate – but mostly it is a profound act of love and gratitude that reinforces and deepens relationships.

From family to workmates, we often take each other for granted in the frantic race that we seem to run every day. Stopping to appreciate someone can create a small, precious breathing space for both of you, where warmth and friendship have time to bloom, sheltered from the tornado of life.

Listen boy
It’s good information from a man
Who’s made mistakes

Just a word or two that she gets from you
Could be the difference that it makes

Billy Joel – Tell Her About It

Recently I stepped down from the child care committee that I have served on for the last 8 years. My youngest child is going to school, and our involvement with the centre finishes tomorrow. At my last meeting the committee touched me deeply by expressing their appreciation of my work most eloquently. I carry their words and gestures with me every day, and their particular choice of words will always make me smile. There is nothing quite like being appreciated to keep you warm inside. We can make a profound difference to someone’s life by telling them how we feel.

Who have you appreciated lately?

What shall we do, boys and girls?

Last week a request came around my workplace for people to help moving tables and chairs. The request included the line “preferably at least 2 boys”.  There are around 45 staff, and the gender balance may not be even, but it must be pretty close. The thing that really struck me is this: I know of several people who could not be involved in moving furniture, due to injury or illness, but none whose gender would be the deciding factor. Indeed, there are girls on staff who could probably easily win an arm wrestle with just about any other member of staff.

We like to think of ourselves as enlightened and inclusive. We don’t like to think that we still reek of prejudice. Yet statements like the one above show up our assumptions and prejudices, warts and all. Girls aren’t good at moving furniture. We’re probably not good at maths & science, either. We’re certainly not good with computers. There are probably few people, aside from Andrew Bolt, who would be willing to stand up in public and say we belong bare foot and pregnant in the kitchen, but I do wonder how far we have actually come, in the privacy of our own minds.

If I showed you a picture of a man, and one of a woman, and asked you to choose someone to help you with your furniture moving, which would you choose?

What if I showed you the same pictures and asked you to pick which one was the nurse, and which the engineer?

Primary school teacher?

Builder?

Stay at home parent?

Psychologist? Psychiatrist?

When I tell you I’ve just been to the doctor, will you ask what he said?

A friend of mine once told me that girls could cook, but they were not competent chefs. The friend was highly educated, extremely intelligent, and perfectly serious. Our cooking skills were fine, but for serious, gourmet food creation you needed a boy. Apparently the high culinary arts are located on the Y chromosome. Years later he offered to marry me for my pavlova, but it was too little, too late.

If my young daughters were to draw pictures of the above professions, I’d like to think there would be no signs of gender bias, but I’m sure there would be. On the bright side, I don’t think they consider themselves barred from any profession by reason of gender – but they do seem to be drawn more towards traditionally female roles, and repelled by traditional male ones. My 4 year old refused to wear her blue slippers yesterday, because “they make me feel boyish”.

Put a 4 year old girl next to a 4 year old boy and you will probably correctly pick the one who is into fairies and the one who is obsessed with trucks. 4 year olds pick up very accurately on our expectations. But the one who is into fairies might be playing with a bulldozer while wearing her fair wings, and the one who loves trucks might also be keen on drawing and flowers.

Kids learn most from what we do, not from what we say. This year there are 7 girls out of 26 kids in my year 11 information technology class. Last year there were 2. I can’t be sure, but I suspect that having a female IT teacher may have triggered a few attitude changes in the students. When we get to a 50-50 ratio I can retire. When we make assumptions based on gender, we are unwittingly educating our kids. What do you teach the young people around you?

I would be the last to argue that there are no differences between the genders. Certainly there are statistical differences overall – on average men find it easier to build muscle than women. But we tend to forget that statistics are useless in the specific case. Put me next to a man and statistics won’t tell you which of us is physically stronger. Despite our assumptions, there are very few jobs that a woman can do and a man can’t. And there are very few jobs that a man can do and a woman can’t.  Shifting furniture may be impossible if you have an injured back, or a broken arm. But it’s no problem if you have a vagina.

Challenge your assumptions!

Working with the elephant

Yesterday I played the piano again for the first time in months. I haven’t played regularly in many years, and even the pieces I used to know by heart are desperately rusty. I can’t play any of them without following the sheet music pretty closely. It was interesting, though, to find that there were large swathes of each song that my fingers were producing without much intervention from my conscious brain. My mind insisted that it was in control, but it really wasn’t paying attention. I had not actually read those notes and deliberately translated them into finger movements, as I had to do when I first learnt the piece. The sheet music was acting as a sort of prompt to an algorithm buried deep in my sub-conscious, and perfectly capable of operating without my intervention.

And if I don’t have this all worked out
Still I’m getting closer, getting closer
I still have far to go no doubt
But I’m getting closer, getting closer

It’s a little spooky to realise that your sub-conscious is up and about while you’re not paying attention. Sometimes I half expect to come home and find postcards from myself. There are numerous tales of people who have driven home and arrived safely, only to wonder who was actually driving their car – they have little or no recollection of the mechanics of the journey. We love to think of ourselves as powerful intellects, in control of our actions and our beliefs, but we are really just riding that ol’ sub-conscious elephant, twitching the reigns occasionally in a rather futile attempt to prove that we know what we’re doing.

If I see it as experience
It hasn’t gone to waste
Lately all the missing pieces
Have been falling into place

I spend a lot of time trying to work out what drives my elephant. It’s useful to understand what sends it stampeding off into the undergrowth, as well as what enrages it and sets it charging in an uncontrolled explosion. Understanding is the first step to defusing those switches, although it is almost certainly the first step on a long and painful road.

I’ve always been fascinated by people who have 5 year plans, together with in depth time lines and implementation details. I’ve always found life far too chaotic and unpredictable for plans. (Two years ago, for example, I would not have been able to predict that I would be sitting here utterly exhausted, having completed my first year of high school teaching.) For a control freak, I am making relatively good progress at accepting that life will bounce me from one event to another, and one crisis to the next, and there’s not much I can do about it – but again they are small steps on a long road.

Though there have been sins
I will regret
Still I’m getting close, getting closer
I don’t have all the answers yet
But I’m getting closer, getting closer

One thing I still struggle with is my anxious attempts to predict the future. I want to be prepared. I want to know what’s going to happen so that I can brace myself for the impact. Yet wise people keep pointing out to me that we can’t predict the future. Stressing about things that might not happen must be the ultimate in foolish energy wastage.

And although you will say
I am still too naive
But I have not lost faith
In the things I believe

Getting Closer, Billy Joel

I can’t prepare for an unknowable future. What I can do is learn to cope better with the present. I can invest my energy in all those things that increase my resilience. In sitting by the pond watching for tadpoles (two froglets and a young tadpole spotted this afternoon). In rediscovering the piano. In singing in the choir, or even just in the shower. In reading books (but only the ones that make me feel good). In spending half an hour in the hallway with my family, swatting a ball of scrunched up paper back and forth (that’s Christmas sorted, then!).

None of this puts me in control of the elephant, of course. But it does soothe the elephant, and makes it harder to spook.

What soothes your elephant?

Unhunch your shoulders

On Saturday mornings I do yoga with a truly fantastic teacher. Roman teaches Yoga Synergy, which is, I must say, quite hard work, but he is careful to reinforce the message every session that the most important thing is this: Do not force, do not strain.

Yoga, he says, should leave you feeling better. You should have more energy, walk taller, and have better posture after a class than before. This is not the typical Western approach to exercise, which tends to see it more as a competitive “no pain no gain” style activity. You push as hard as you can. If you’re not hurting, you’re not working hard enough. Push yourself further than the guy next to you. Pain is your FRIEND. Seek it out. Embrace it. Feel the burn.

I am often tempted to prove to myself that I can do more than others in the class. I want to be able to say that I can do the advanced postures. I feel good about myself if I am pushing really hard, approaching the absolute limits of what I can do.

Yet even though I feel good in class, working that way usually leaves me wrecked for the rest of the weekend. Sometimes it leaves me injured. It’s a style of approach that I first recognised years ago when I got into cycling – I’d ride out my front gate, hurtle up the nearest hill as hard as I could, and more often than not turn blue, collapse off the bike and occasionally pass out before I’d made it up the first hill. In those days a long ride was out of the question, because I would burn out in the first ten minutes.

I have to continually remind myself of Roman’s central message: Do not force. Do not strain. And just when we’re in the middle of a difficult posture, giving it all we’ve got, he’ll remind the class to “unhunch your shoulders,” and we’ll discover that we’ve contorted ourselves into positions The Grinch would be proud of, in an effort to really nail that posture. Thereby completely missing the point.

I find I also need to remind myself that Roman’s words apply equally well to everyday life. I am fundamentally bad at pacing myself. I force, strain and hunch my shoulders all day long, rushing at life like a bull at a gate, and often passing out halfway up that first hill. Yet those times when I take a deep breath, make time to meditate, and force myself to stop every now and then, are also the times when I am most effective, productive, and indeed sane.

When I remember to unhunch my shoulders, I can keep going almost indefinitely. That’s a lesson I badly need to apply to my work. I’m tired of passing out on the first hill. I am thinking of asking Roman to let me record him, so that I can make an app that pops up every so often and says “Remember: Do not force, do not strain. And unhunch your shoulders.”

Career Change

Changing career is a little like becoming a parent for the first time. Everything is new, strange, and exciting. You spend a lot of time terrified of getting something horribly wrong. You worry about the right way to do things, and whether you are handling everything properly. You are consumed with dread about what everyone else must be thinking.

Out in public, you are often convinced that your inexperience and nervousness show like big flags waving over your head. “Newbie!” the flags scream. “SHE’S GOT NO IDEA!” they declare. “COMPLETELY HOPELESS! SOMEBODY GET HER OUT OF HERE!” they declaim. You are overwhelmed, and completely certain that, sooner or later, someone will realise you are hopelessly unqualified to be in this position, and they will rectify the ludicrous mistake that gave you all this responsibility.

Slowly, little by little, you begin to relax into your role. Maybe you have a great day, or you get a little positive feedback, and it’s like your baby smiling at you for the first time. Suddenly you remember why you wanted to do something so insane. You start to think that maybe you could be good at this, in time. It’s still hugely, incredibly daunting, but there are thrills – not every day, but more and more often. This feels like it could be something fabulous.

Just as you’re feeling almost comfortable – WHAM! Something goes horribly wrong. You make a huge mistake, or handle something unbearably badly. It feels as though you have dropped your baby on her head. You may never recover from the guilt, shame and ignominy. What could possibly have made you think that you could do this? You are nowhere near good enough for something this amazing. Something this important. It was a horrendous, horrifying mistake to get into this position in the first place, and the sooner the earth opens up and swallows you whole, the better for everyone involved.

And then, if you are exceptionally lucky, an angel appears. Someone takes you by the hand and explains that nobody died, that everybody has bad days, and that perspective is a wonderful thing. They tell you their own horror stories about days that went catastrophically wrong. You realise that if someone so experienced, so obviously talented, can still have bad days, maybe there’s hope for you. You lift your head and smell hope on the breeze.

Exactly like that moment when you meet another parent who has “been there, screamed that, and lived to laugh about it afterwards”, you realise that these are moments that we all share. That there is nothing unique about your own situation, or your own fears. That even the best of us has times when we feel as though we are dragging ourselves along the bottom of the ocean. And that sometimes we all need a little help to find our way back to the surface.

To all the angels in my life, and especially in my workplace – thank you! You brighten the darkest days.

Poignant goodbyes

I have just got back from the funeral of a 16 year old friend of ours, Michael, who died suddenly, in tragic circumstances (not that the circumstances can be anything other than tragic when death strikes at just 16 years old). As we left the church and watched the coffin being loaded into the hearse, I was struck by the sheer size of the community that had turned out to show their love and support for this gorgeous family.

We were gathering around them to show our support, and the group kept having to shuffle around to make room. In fact it would probably have taken a football field or two to fit all of the people who were standing shoulder to shoulder, supporting the family and each other by
the sheer fact of their presence – and that’s just the ones who were physically able to be there. I know of a much larger number of people who could not make it to the funeral, yet they stand just as firmly as part of that supportive community.

This is a particularly special family. They have always had a gift for creating communities around them – drawing people together, loving and supporting them in a complete embodiment of the Christian ideal.  They are now reaping what they have sown, as their friends and neighbours rally around them in a hundred different ways.

I must admit that before the funeral I was fighting a sense of gasping, desperate panic, lost in the enormity of what had happened, and drowning in both my own grief and my horror at the lifelong burden our friends now have to bear. The funeral, though, was a great relief. There were, of course, floods of tears.  I was far too choked up to sing, even though I knew the hymns, and I usually find great solace in singing.

But there was great therapy in taking part in the outpouring of grief, and also in the happy memories of Michael. The speeches painted a vivid and glowing picture of him, and highlighted the love that unites us all. Love for Michael, love for his family, and our love and
concern for each other.

This is why funerals are important. They provide an opportunity to support each other. To share our grief and remember the good stuff. To hug each other tightly and reaffirm our commitment to friends and family. And to remember that we are not alone – that others share both the trauma and the laughter, and that life goes on.

There were kids at the funeral, and the occasional squeals during the ceremony – whether of delight or outrage – were a poignant affirmation that even in the bleakest times the sun still shines, children still play, and our hearts keep beating, even when they feel unbearably
crushed and broken.

The sun was noticeably absent today – it was a grey, cold and drizzly day that matched my mood on the way to the funeral. Although it was no warmer when we left, and the clouds had in fact descended even lower to enfold us in a misty gloom, my heart was lighter and I could finally see a way forward – hand in hand with everyone who ever knew and loved Michael.

Digital Natives

Lately I’m starting to feel that I’m languishing on the wrong side of the digital divide. I’m starting to wonder if I’m really cut out for technology. I realise that this is a rather strange reflection for a teacher of Information Technology with a PhD in Computer Science. Perhaps it’s time to start calling me Dr Strange. It wouldn’t be the first time.

A few weeks ago I tried very hard to leave facebook. I was increasingly unhappy with the way facebook kept arbitrarily changing its sharing protocols so that information I had locked down under tight privacy settings kept getting made public in various surreptitious ways, which I only found out about when friends started posting warnings. (Fortunately these types of warnings tend to go viral fairly fast.)

I was also getting frustrated that facebook kept dictating what information I wanted to see, and who I wanted to interact with. Despite me repeatedly changing my settings to say “I want to see everything from everyone with equal priority”, it kept resetting the interface so that it could choose what I saw, the order in which I saw it, and who I was really friends with.

The internet is increasingly filtered, shaped and redirected by companies like facebook and google. They show you what they think you want to see, but also what they think they can make money out of you seeing. Google search results, on which we rely so heavily these days, are heavily biased in favour of paying customers and strange ranking rules. We see what Google wants us to see – after all, how often do you page through to the 3rd page of results, let alone the 10th? The information on the first page is likely to be all that ever makes it into your brain.

Sadly my attempt to ditch facebook hasn’t worked. I have too many friends on facebook who I am, I have to confess, better connected with because of facebook. I love the interaction, and seeing who responds when I share something I found particularly funny, poignant, or outrageous. I love the political conversations and the funny ones. I love that I can poke fun at English or Maths teachers and start small riots among my friends.

It’s a vital, interactive community. I am more connected with friends who live overseas. I have reconnected with old friends, and I find commonalities with them via facebook that I never would have guessed. It’s also a way to share news – although it’s highly suspect for that, because of its aforesaid tendency to hide or reveal posts according to its own bizarre agenda.

When the outside temperature rises
And the meaning is oh so clear
One thousand and one yellow daffodils
Begin to dance in front of you – oh dear
Are they trying to tell you something
You’re missing that one final screw
You’re simply not in the pink my dear
To be honest you haven’t got a clue

I never closed my account, and I will probably start posting there again soon, because I miss it. I hoped that friends would travel over to google+, but it hasn’t taken off among my circles yet. Posting on google+ at the moment feels a little like flinging bread pellets into an echoing abyss.

Most of my students are active on social media all day every day. I have to work hard to keep them engaged and off chat during class. They carry phones everywhere they go, and are highly responsive to them. And I admit that, under stress, I love to be able to text or chat with close friends and get sympathetic or encouraging responses. It helps me feel connected and supported.

At the same time, though, all this connectivity seems to take a toll. I wind up feeling frayed around the edges. It’s only when I step away from it, and stand outside sniffing the breeze and listening to the birds, that the frayed edges of my soul start to knit together. It’s stillness, meditation and peace that allow me to calm down. All my electronic gadgets conspire to deny me these things. They wind me up. It’s too tempting to sit hunched over my laptop browsing facebook, rather than going outside to breathe and reravel myself. The internet seems determined to keep me unravelled and buzzing.

I’m knitting with only one needle
Unravelling fast it’s true
I’m driving only three wheels these days
But my dear how about you

I’m going slightly mad
I’m going slightly mad
It finally happened

I am sure that my year 11s, reading this, would label me old fashioned, perhaps even curmudgeonly. I know that my kids rail against our restrictions on “screen time”, and are constantly seeking ways around those limits. They want nothing more than to be permanently logged in. Yet rather than relaxing their limits, I think I need to beef up my own. I need to prioritise the ravelling of my soul over the answering of my email. Just let me check who’s on facebook…

Risky Business

Our perception of risk is a strange and flawed thing. Evolution has led us to a very tribal calculation of risk: What happens to the tribe could happen to us, so paying attention makes good survival sense. Our ideas of risk are based on the stories that we hear, which used to come primarily from people close to us, at least geographically. Now the stories we hear come from the global media, which is desperately skewed – not by any foul conspiracy, but by the need to make money.

These days if it bleeds, it leads. News stories come from all around the world, and of course we don’t hear about millions of children getting to school safely. We hear about the one child thousands of kilometres away who was snatched by a paedophile. The front page of a newspaper website will be filled with sensational tales of gory murders, gruesome kidnappings and horrendous road rage, gathered from around the world, and guaranteed to arouse excitement, indignation, and, above all, sales.

What’s more, the media gorges on the details of these cases day after day – so a single sensational incident may spend weeks headlining the news as individual details trickle out. Then they headline again when the case goes to court. Each new headline, every individual news story, reinforces the idea that the world is a dreadful, terrifying place, filled with psychopaths out to get us, and worse – targeting our children.

Today’s headlines in the Melbourne Age (in Australia), for example, include “Missing tour guide found dead in ‘hit-and-run’ after three days” – about an American woman in Tuscany. “A vicious, vile reign of terror has come to an end: pair caught after teen slain” – another American incident. Oh, and “Gunman opens fire near uni campus” – about a man who fired one shot, straight up into the air, and then drove off.  The implication of the headline is far more dramatic than the reality of the story.

Similarly, common risks don’t get much media mileage. Car accidents often don’t make the news unless they are particularly horrific. Occasionally the road toll is reported, but they are impersonal & meaningless statistics, compared to the gripping drama of a kidnap victim, or missing child. Everyone knows the story of Madeleine McCann. No-one knows the story of Jane Do who was hit by a car and wound up a paraplegic or dead.

So we underplay the danger of, for example, driving while over-tired, or talking on the phone (hands-free or not makes little difference, in the few studies that have looked closely at the risk – it’s the distraction, not the device itself).

Headlines also cater to popular prejudice and misconceptions. Cycling has an image as an incredibly risky activity, despite studies that show that health benefits far outweigh the risks. Hundreds of people die in car accidents every year, in Victoria alone, yet a single accident involving a cyclist can make headlines for days, while the vast majority of deaths in car accidents go unreported.

At a recent talk on reptiles, the keeper at Ballarat Wildlife park pointed out that we are terrified of snakes, which cause on average 1.4 deaths per year. Yet we are not the slightest bit alarmed by Christmas trees which cause around 3 deaths per year (in Australia). I can’t verify these figures, but the point is valid nonetheless – our perception of risk can be wildly out of proportion to the actual likelihood of harm.

All these stories feed into our perception of risk in potent ways. Survival used to hinge on paying attention to what went on around us. Now we are paying attention to what goes on around the world – but only the gory, sensational, terrifying parts.

We can’t, of course, go around verifying risk statistics every time we do anything. Pausing to cross the road, our calculation of risk must be instinctive and rapid. But I think we would all benefit from a little more research and a lot more thought about the risks we take in our lives.

Australians on average live richer, safer and more privileged lives than ever before, yet at the same time we are jumping at shadows. We are frightened of strangers, refugees, bicycles and bugs. We teach our children to insulate themselves from the world, and hold themselves aloof from it for their own “protection”.  I have to wonder – at what cost?