Lies and Innocence

             Losing innocence is a scary thing, but lying to yourself about a situation in the attempt to save your innocence is an even scarier thought. When we watch the news we often turn it off after seeing that a person has been killed or that their is an active shooter on the loose. Things like this scary us so much that sometimes we go to extreme measures to convince ourselves that we are completely safe at all times. If you see on the news that their is an active shooter in the area you may go immediately to google maps to see for yourself just how far away the threat was last spotted. If your blue dot is too close to the location pin you might try typing in the address again or even zooming in on the map so it gives the illusion that the danger is farther away than it really is. We lie to ourselves for the feeling of safety and comfort. Most people don’t want to lose that innocence so instead they push away all the things that make them uncomfortable. I think we lie to protect our innocence everyday. We tell ourselves that these things aren’t really happening in our world. Things like war, discrimination, hate crimes, judgement, danger, hatred, drugs, economical problems, government, and fear are all things that we ignore in hopes of saving our childlike innocence. Living in such a safe neighborhood I often don’t realize the pain and suffering that is going on in the world. In the book, The Outsiders , Ponyboy and Cherry come to a sudden realization that we all see the same sunrise and sunset. We feel so disconnected to the pain of the “real world” because we are constantly lying to ourselves. We are locked in a gilded cage of lies when outside of the cage lies hurt, fear, anxiety, and worry, but often times we never fully experience these things because of our need for protection. Would the world be a different or maybe better place if we let ourselves truly experience pain? Would we have more sympathy? Would we be more willing to help others if we truly knew what they were going through? Can it be a good thing to lose innocence and gain the knowledge of the real world? Personally, I think that each way has its pros and cons. Keeping innocence keeps you in a near perfect world, but you will never really feel for those on pain. Your lies will will block true connections with you and the ones who need you the most. If you lose innocence and knock down the wall of lies then you have the added pain and fear from always being aware of the danger around you, but on the contrary you will build relationships you never would have dreamed of creating. Your connections will be stronger and you will experience things with all truth. In a perfect world we would have both, but unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, we have to choose which life we would like to live. What life will you choose?