Look out! ... Ah, well, nice try anyway.

Incoming!
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When you hear someone yell, "Look out," I have to ask, do you look or start running? I've done both and I still haven't decided which is better. On one hand, looking helps you see whatever is a hazard to you, but on the other hand someone yelled a warning clearly because you are in immediate danger. I think the natural inclination for me is to stop and look. Which brings up an interesting question: if nobody shouted out a caution, would you be any more likely to be injured? That's the funny thing about warnings. Sometimes the warning itself is more dangerous than the circumstances. That makes it a paradox of sorts.

In stories, particularly the more visual sorts (like movies and plays), the audience is the one being warned. And there's no greater warning fun than the well-known jump scare. There's typically a loud bang, something leaps out, and basically an unexpected event scares the daylights out of you. What's funny is how the audience nearly always knows it's about to happen. We know the tricks and yet keep falling for the same, "watch out," that is a fake so we don't see the real one sneaking up behind. Probably overused, but it does work.

You can see this happen at any playground. The boys are playing soccer and eventually the ball will go flying, someone yells a warning, and whammo some poor kid gets it right in the face. There's plenty of video proof in those funny clips on the internet. Perhaps we learn this from our parents, because parents love to trick their kids by telling them to look at something and then catching them by surprise. It's a tease. Then, we get a warning to look out and we still suspect a trick. Maybe we just don't consider it really is a ... hey, look out!

- M