I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Frank Herbert, Dune
What are you afraid of?
It’s the kind of question we run into all the time. We read it in stories and hear it in movies, spoken by protagonist and antagonist alike. The source, the target, the situation – all made irrelevant by ubiquity. The question itself doesn’t matter; in each case the asking party is after something more. Something deeper. They want to know what controls the other party, and make no mistake – in some manner or form, we are all controlled by fear.
The idea is a cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less true. It also doesn’t mean it’s irrational. Why do we look both ways when we cross a street? Why do we ask our loved ones to call us when they get home safely? Fear of bodily harm. Of loss. Again, perfectly rational. But these examples are obvious and universal, they don’t give us any real insight into a person, do they?
Well, what about me? How has fear sculpted me, and how does it continue to bend my life’s arc? Well, I fear for my children. I fear that the world I want them to grow up into won’t be there, that cynicism and hate will turn people against one another and a period of relative peace will dissolve before they’ve known it, that my beliefs will be so maligned by society at large that it will turn them away and they’ll go down a path that will harm them. I fear the loss of values that leads to overthrowing institutions, the skin-suit of an American government that presents one thing and performs another. I fear the path we’re on, collectively, as a nation and a planet.
You know, the small stuff.
Of course that affects me. As political as I am, how can it not? But, see, that’s something we all need to realize. They know this, too. “They” being the typical “they.” The government, the media, large corporations. Fear is powerful. It sells. It motivates.
Antifa is coming to burn down your town – vote for me and I’ll stop them. Global warming will destroy the world in 12 years – vote for me and I’ll prevent it. Cops are murdering black men en masse – watch these cell phone videos. Critical Race Theory is coming to tell your kids that they’re awful – sign this petition.
So you do. You vote, you watch, you sign. You buy in, and you fuel the machine. You’re sold fear, the most potent of drugs, and you wait for someone else to make things better.
How’s that working out so far?
Like I’ve said from the beginning, these posts are stream-of-consciousness and I don’t edit, that’s part of the exercise of all this, so bear with me when I say there’s probably more than a few studies out there on this topic and I might be full of crap, but I can’t help but notice something about humans. We need fear. We need an enemy. And when we don’t have one, when we live in a society so posh and outlandishly secure, we end up inventing them in one another.
I can’t tell you how many times I get on social media and see people I know personally calling me a murderer or an imbecile or an [insert blanket attack here]. Because I believe X, I’m the enemy. I’ve never called them out for this, but I’ve always wondered what they would say if I did. Do they know I believe that, and do they think their condemnation applies to me, or am I “one of the good ones?” If so, why? Because I’m different? Or because I’m a known quantity? Because I’m real – I have a personality, I’m human, I’m not this invented amalgam of Enemy That Must Be Destroyed?
Sorry, this has become more of a rant than I wanted it to be, but I’m just sick to death of being fed anger and fear. What’s worse is that it’s working. We’re at each others throats because no one talks about anything real. We bicker over symptoms while the cancer grows and keep buying cigarettes from the people saying they’ll help with pain relief.
Stop being afraid of your neighbors. They don’t control your lives. Start being afraid of the people who say they know what’s best for you while they’re a thousand miles away. They don’t know you at all. They know what keeps them in power. They know how to sell fear. Stop buying.
Themeattics 