July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.

Taking the time to look around

Letters to the Editor

To the editor:
On Feb. 1, 2011, my life was slowed down by a force much bigger than myself.
The media frenzy began on the last day in January warning us all that a winter storm was fast approaching. That day panic began setting in.
The reaction was like that of the “herd instinct” in early man. Everyone was rushing to buy food, fuel, generators, and all kinds of alternative heat sources.
Myself, not being one who generally buys into the media and who questions their motives, I caught myself believing this storm could be real. As I found myself preparing for what could be a week of ice, snow, and no electricity, I realized that we all had one thing in common. We were all trying to survive, now perhaps at a very basic level.
The weather came as predicted this time, and for the first time in ages I missed work. I was forced by nature to slow down.
As the day progressed the electricity came and went as the ice began to accumulate on the electric lines. Funny thing about electricity is that much like a lot of things in our life we take it for granted. That is, until we no longer have it.
Without electricity we have no television. For periods, sometimes lasting hours, I had no one evaluating for me, telling me how I should look or not look at my age, selling the latest diet or exercise program, convincing me that the sky is falling or at least it will be if you don’t take this or that drug.
Hours turned into days, and I had the realization that we would all be okay. Perhaps we would all be better off without television.
Maybe we could have an original thought of our own, maybe we could be just fine in our own bodies instead of those of a twenty year old, and just maybe we could adjust to life just fine without taking any number of pharmaceutical drugs they’re constantly promoting (pushing).
 Maybe this storm was by design. To slow us all down, to take a good look around our environment. To take inventory of who we are and what we may be able to do, not only to promote our own survival but the survival of those around us. Nature is a funny thing, and we need to listen to her when she speaks.
Rock Fuqua
Dunkirk[[In-content Ad]]
PORTLAND WEATHER

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