Sounds like a fairly boring premise for a story, doesn’t it? Stories thrive on conflict.
Safety is something I took for granted as a child. I assumed other children took it for granted. Learning I was wrong was terrifying. Some of my friends let me know in a number of ways they’d never felt safe.
This was a luxury I hadn’t realized I’d possessed. I only realized it was a luxury when I lost it. Later I wondered if I’d ever had it. If it hadn’t been an illusion created by the strength and love of those who were part of my life, doing their best to create that safety.
A heroic act, trying to create a safe place. Perhaps this place becomes more real and less of an illusion the more people strive to maintain it.
Thinking about what a struggle it can be, to create safety makes me realize how I wrong I was. It’s not boring at all. Not if you’re part of the effort to make it happen.
How do you do it, make your world, fictional or real a safe place? How can you make it safe for those you want to protect without stripping it of the vitality which makes life more interesting?
This seems like a crucial question which could fuel more than a story plot. It could build entire civilizations.
What small steps could be taken to achieve this? By being tolerant, kind, and respectful to each other? By creating environments where we can breathe and move? By overlapping with each other without intruding?
By making a small choice, as small as not choosing to blare your phone in a public place? By choosing not yell at someone else because they make you angry? To consider the environment you have to live in, the others you have to live with rather than simply your own comfort and how to advance yourself? Or to try to create a comfortable space for yourself and others whom need a safe place to go to?
This can be a challenge. Especially if others around you have different ideas of safety. Ideas which exclude you entirely. Or disregard you as a person also wanting to feel safe.
The quest for safety, whether it’s on a different world or this one can be quite dangerous. As dangerous as any other quest.
Good luck to everyone who hopes to find it. Wish me luck in doing the same.