One of the Most Effective Antidotes to Fear is Action

There is quite a bit of nuttiness in the air right now, and my hypothesis is that the irrationality of it all is being principally driven by fear. There have been people killed. They've been killed in a violent and sudden manner, and it's brought out every tin pot mini-dictator that can garner a platform to tell the world that they should all be afraid. The fear peddlers are out in full force because they've read their history, and they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if they can drum up enough fear they can capture some power.

The most dangerous thing I did all day was commute into work. In today's day and age, even that isn't too terribly dangerous thanks to good folks at places like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) working to use science and engineering to bound the risk. Even though pulsing down the highway at the sporty pace of seventy five miles an hour was by far my greatest risk today, that's not what the fear peddlers told me to avoid.

If one chose to listen to these fear based power consolidators, you would have heard dire warning of the inevitability of further shootings and bombings. You would have heard them tell you to avoid places with large crowds that might prove to be a tempting and easy target for the miscreants skulking around just waiting for the opportune time to send you to the great unknown at the wrong end of an "assault style weapon" or pipe bomb.

Instead of listening to their breathless predictions of the potential dire consequences and their solutions for things that I have no hope of solving as an individual, I exercised my right to make them be silent and metaphorically pressed the Off button on their hyperbolic rantings.

Instead, I got outside, and in an act of rebellion to their terrible advice, I went to one of those heavily populated places that they seem to dislike enough to target.  This is what I saw...

Center Arch Christmas Wreath and Fellow Traveller
With a Pizza at Union Station

Union Station is a spectacular place. The architecture competes well with other monuments in the area, and the dynamic environment of a major transportation hub is exhilarating. A friend reminded me that there is a display of model holiday trains just inside the door behind me from where this picture was taken, and I'm saddened to report that I didn't go in to see it this evening.  They were just setting up the display when I popped in several days ago, so another trip seems to be calling.

Same Wreath from the Outside Looking In

I'm happy to report that nothing bad happened.  I didn't see anything suspicious, so I kept my mouth shut. I was blessed with participating in life on a spectacular autumn evening, and the anxiety dealers were still trapped in their little television shaped cells.

Supreme Court of the United States

I was heartened to see that I'd been joined by a host of like minded citizens intent on exercising the freedom that our system and institutions protect. Come join me outside in the midst of our fellow travellers who refused to be cowed by the miscreants and the fearmongers. Action is the Antidote to the poison they're pushing.