What Morbid Curiosity Teaches Us About Living
Chasing an ambulance is more exciting than following a taxi.
When I see lights and hear sirens, I want to know what’s happening. It’s not that I want to see someone injured or killed. But something out of the ordinary happened. What could it be? Was it a car accident? Was it a fire? Did someone have a medical emergency? Were the cops chasing a bank robber or a car thief? If I’m near a TV or radio, I’ll switch to the local news to see if anyone’s reporting on it. If I’m in my truck, I’ll follow the lights and sirens to see what happened.
I’m curious to a fault.
The other day, when coming home from a doctor's appointment, I was cruising down the highway. Traffic was flowing without a hitch. I didn’t hear any sirens, but when I looked in the rear-view mirror, I saw flashing lights. Cars and trucks were pulling to the side of the road to let the emergency vehicles by. Two ambulances and five highway patrol cars raced past me. In a couple of minutes, they were out of sight, but my curiosity was full bore.
Several miles ahead, two cop cars blocked the highway. Traffic was being diverted. My GPS alerted there was an accident ahead. After merging to take a side road, I waited while two sheriff cars with lights and sirens passed on the road’s soft shoulder.
I said a quick prayer for the victims.
On the road leading around the accident, people pulled their cars to the side of the road. Some people were standing outside their cars, staring in the accident's direction. Other people were pointing. A few people's hands were over their mouths. Several couples were hugging.
I took a quick glance, thinking I would see what happened, but there was nothing to see. I wondered what people were looking and pointing at. Whatever had happened was too far down the highway to see.
When I got home, I checked the news. In the accident, 3 people received minor injuries. The vehicles were not so lucky.
People have a morbid curiosity. It’s a part of the human condition. It fills a gap between what we know and what we want to know. And we learn from it.
I watched a series of videos about a young man injured in a forklift accident.
What first held my attention was his survival. I wanted to know more about him. But first I needed to know about the accident. I had a lot of questions. How did he survive his injuries? How did the forklift tip over on him? Why wasn’t he able to escape?
By the end of watching his story, I felt inspired. It put my problems in a proper perspective. Here are some of my “problems” compared to his.
- I was feeling writer’s block. He has immense pain every day that is so bad his body trembles.
- I tore a muscle in my hip while exercising. He lost his legs above his hips.
- I sometimes forget to take the dog out at night and have to get up and get dressed. He can’t get up by himself and has to have a special wheelchair and sits in a prosthetic bucket.
Morbid curiosity is common to us. It’s a way for us to learn from other people’s experiences without experiencing the event ourselves. It teaches us to have compassion for others. And it makes us realize how fragile our life is and how it can change in an instant.
People follow ambulances and police cars.
No one follows taxis.
What is an event that changed your life?