A Grain of Salt

I have basically stopped reading the news since we've been here, in Tehran.
I've to do this from time to time, to avoid total frustration over the state of world affairs, especially those my own government is involved in...but even so, I don't necessarily believe everything I read.
A healthy dose of skepticism is a good thing - everything in moderation - the truth is somewhere in the middle.
With this in mind, I wonder at the point of writing at all, but it comes along anyway - these things that need to be said.

With so many emails from friends and family around the world, particularly the States, imagining that 'Iran must be a scary place to be right now' I look out the windows of our house, or of the car as we drive through the streets, searching for what it is I should be so worried about.
Findng nothing, I return to the emails for the source of all this concern and it always comes back to the same: the media.

I realize that politics and daily life are, at least in theory, two different things, but when daily life in the west is inundated by the "reasons" why everyone should be afraid of Iran the perception that now seems to permeate western society in general is not the fault of those worrying over my safety, they simply have no other point of reference from which to relate to this Middle Eastern country.

I remember when I was younger, when Reagan was president, and my understanding of politics and global affairs literally came from one source: the television.
There were ominous news reports every night about "The Middle East" and I could only imagine it as one big entity, not realizing it was made up of countries, both small and large; each with their own economies, agendas, religions, politics, and most importantly: neighborhoods.
Neighborhoods with homes, and businesses, and schools, and people.
People who live and breathe the same as anyone else, going about their lives in a language other than my own.
I was too young to know anything other than that the word "war" scared me - and I was hearing it often enough that I went to sleep at night worried about the idea that one country could be so mad at another as to decide that killing people in said country was an OK thing to do.

Now that I am older, more educated, and well-travelled I am blessed with deeper perspectives on the vision offered by media. I can see the nuances of corporate and political relationships, to a lesser degree than they exist to be sure, but they are clearly there. The political game is more apparent; the gesturing, the puffing up of chests, the backstabbing. But perhaps most of all, I see firsthand the faces of those people being portrayed in the news as the "bad guys." I live among them, I know them better every day, I kiss them goodnight.
Iran is not a scary place to be. On the contrary, Iran as a nation of its people (some of the most civilized, generous, and understanding I've encountered on this planet) is wonderful, period.

The people I know in Iran don't want destruction and suffering for anyone on the planet any more than people I know from anywhere else.
No one I've met is angry at me for being American, for the unnatural "accident" that is my country's leadership. I have not heard a single negative word, nor felt uncomfortable in the least since I've been here.

So, rest assured (for what it's worth) if there is any reason Iran is a scary place to be right now it's only because my own country seems to have very destructive plans for the country I presently call home.