“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” (Yoda)
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I don't know about you, but I am sick and tired of being afraid.
When I was a kid in the 3rd grade, I was bullied by another kid who was a year older than me. He picked on me because I used to go to private school. To him, the math was simple: private school = easy target. The first day he beat me up, I went home bruised and battered. My older brother asked me what happened and I told him about the beating that I got from the bully.
“Did you fight back?” he asked.
“No,” I answered.
“Why?” he asked, annoyed.
“I was afraid,” I said.
Then he hit me. Hard. In my arm. And it hurt. A lot.
Next day, same thing happened. Bully beat my behind. I came home and told my brother. He asked the same questions, I gave him the same answers. He gave me the same hit, though it was on the other arm.
“What are you afraid of more,” he asked, “the bully or me hitting you for being afraid of the bully?”
The following day, I came home. I was bruised up. Again, my brother confronted me.
“Did you fight back?” he asked.
“He's gonna have trouble peeing,” I answered.
He smiled and patted me on the back. He explained to me that even if I had lost, he would have been proud of me because at least I fought back.
Since that time, I've always stood up to any bully that came my way. Bullies rule by fear. Take that fear away and they have nothing to work with.
Scientifically speaking, we all know that fear causes a fight-or-flight reaction in the human body. Adrenaline is released into the bloodstream, which causes the muscles of the body to go into a state of readiness for intense muscular activity. The heart and lungs move faster. Pupils dilate and tunnel vision develops. Reflexes increase. Hearing loss begins. Even your metabolism slows down or stops completely. Of course, all of this is supposed to stop once the threat is evaded (flight) or neutralized (fight).
Being exposed to stress also triggers this, but in a more prolonged way. It causes all of the above, but also causes suppression of the immune system, constipation, difficulty urination and sexual suppression. When they say stress kills, it's not a joke.
Ever notice how when you're really angry or scared, you can't think straight? That's because the fight-or-flight response will only allow two methods of thinking: aggressive or evasive. Defeat the enemy or outrun them.
I hate anything that messes with my thinking. Fear does it in a way that you can't stop unless you can stop the process from happening in the first place. And that's why I hate to let my fear overwhelm me.
Yet every time I turn on the television, check the internet or read a newspaper, all I see is fear. And worse yet, I can see that the fear is manufactured in an attempt to sway the way we all think, all in the name of political gain.
It makes me mad, but if I let it overwhelm me, then I fall into the same trap. A catch-22, if I ever saw one.
I'm hoping that we come to a point where we let common sense dictate how we think, not what we're afraid of. But until that time comes, only knowledge and education can help, not ignorance. I was going to add passion to that, but passion is a double-edged sword.
Right now, as we edge closer to election time, all of us will be bombarded with advertisements that are designed to scare us into voting for the candidate who is the least scary. Think I'm wrong? Try this the next time you hear a negative campaign commercial. Close your eyes and just listen. Listen to the music in the background. Listen to the voice of the narrator. These are all psychological tools that marketing and advertising companies use to set the mood and tone of the listener.
In fact, compare it to a trailer for a scary movie. You'll see there's very little difference.
Instead, get the facts. In this day and age, where information is readily available, it's very easy to get. Then make your choice. What do you have to lose?
People may knock science fiction, but you would be surprised at how much you can learn about common sense by reading them. Here's something I found in a book called Dune by Frank Herbert that I try to keep in mind whenever I think my fear will overwhelm me. It's an incantation used by a group of witches known as the Bene Gesserit to calm them down in times of peril known as the litany against fear:
“I must not fear.For those of a more spiritual leaning, there's the passage in 2 Timothy 1:7 that says:
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.”
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.”Don't get me wrong. I'm not blind or deaf to what's happening to us. The economy is out of control. People are losing their jobs, homes, and livelihoods. No one knows when this will turn around. And this is the perfect time for those who want to set their own agendas to make us afraid, so that we develop tunnel vision and see nothing else but what they tell us.
But if we have self-discipline, then we can see without the blinders on. We can listen past the rhetoric and see what the truth is. We can make our choices based on knowledge and not simply what we feel. We can come up with solutions that help all instead of a chosen few. And if we base those solutions on love for our fellow man and not fear, what could be better than that?
It's easy to fear or hate what we don't understand, but lack of understanding is ignorance in the highest form. And ignorance is a choice, not an excuse.
Make your selection now.
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