Ever read John Brunner's "The sheep look up" ?
A most interesting book indeed.
When poor Pandora's vase was opened out of curiosity, hope was also found inside.
A daily dose of negativity, psychologically adjusted for maximal effect, is given to everybody so that we even more become part of a consuming mass without hope and dreams, following the leader down well-throdden corridors into the valley of steel.
Well, you know best what you really stand for in the face of danger.
Let's live dangerously and follow our own hearts and dreams.
Raven: imo, it's not being a parent that gives the sense of reality, but the fact that, amongst others when being a parent, we open up and see that life is more that my life alone. (to see a world in a grain of sand, remember?)