Our View of the Different, Unknown and the Mysterious

Our View of the Different, Unknown and the Mysterious

                The unknown is not viewed kindly by the eyes of mankind. In, fact most things that fail to be in the grasp of mankind’s comprehension are usually met with fear, anger, and persecution. Though, what if the object of mystery isn’t harmful? What if we are the monsters that haunt our own dreams? Our imagination fuels our fears.

In the story A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings a mysterious miracle occurs. As you can guess a man with wings is discovered and is met with all that accompanied with a lack of understanding. The man is locked in a cage and fed like a pet. His freedom is taken away because of the abnormality of his appearance. Then the man is made out to be a side show freak. The citizens are not doing this because they fear for their safety but because they are amused by his differences.

It depresses me that we as humans have such a lack of understanding. It is in our nature to persecute those who are different. Like the towns people of the story we to have persecuted a person or group of people through the generations. The most horrible example I can think of is the Holocaust where genocide was in progress. What species commences genocide on their brothers except for us? Like the man with wings was people are still persecuted today. When it occurs in school we call it bullying, and it is quite common. It hurts knowing someone has so much contempt for you and all that makes you; I can attest to that.

Mankind does not like mysteries. In fact we fear the unknown and unusual. There are exceptions though. Sometimes our scope of knowledge widens. Sometimes we learn from our wrong doings. Maybe there is hope for us yet.