Is it normal this made me afraid to drive?
Ok, this really is only ONE aspect, since a lot of different events contributed to my fears, but this one in particular is what probably put the extreme opinions in my head.
I remember in 10th grade English class, we had to read the book Fahrenheit 451, and one assignment we had to do was share an interesting fact about its author Ray Bradbury. While google searching for that, I found he never learned to drive, and actually had a pretty negative opinion on cars in general. He even said that cars kill people more than wars do!
My initial thought was “I kinda see where he’s coming from, but I think he went a bit overboard.” I found myself wondering how he’d feel if he needed to go to the hospital and a car was the only way.
But I didn’t think much of it, until I came across a scene in the book where a character was hit by a car and died. I was especially sad because this character reminded me a lot of a friend I made at the time, and I really hated the thought of this happening to her.
And then I kept hearing about more accidents, my teachers showed us videos of the after math of some with zero warnings that we would see something graphic, and even showed one video that told us to imagine having caused an accident, and thinking about the tragedy we would have caused (I should mention that that is VERY VERY VERY BAD for your mind!)
The more I kept hearing about all this, the more I kept thinking, “maybe Ray Bradbury had a point!”
I sometimes find myself scared to go outside because of all the cars out there, and how I’ve trained myself to associate them with such horrible things. I really want to be wrong though, as although we’re in quarantine as I’m writing this, wasting your life away inside is a sad life to live.