Religionist cons always offer eternal peace and love because they target the insecure even as they ramp up fear, hate, and anxiety. This combination of unrelenting pressure and an offer of refuge is irresistible to abused slaves. Hence Nietzsche’s dictum that Christianity is a slave’s religion. He could have expanded that to include all organized religion.
This goes further. Corporate marketing employs the same method of setting up anxiety and fear, then using it as leverage to obey them by offering solutions. Buy this and that awful thing will be kept at bay until you have to buy it again, etc.
At core, then, we see fear as the key to manipulation, coercion, and control. Duck the fear and freedom beckons. To be free is to be free to, and free from. Unfettered action is freedom, be it in thought or deed.
By endorsing workers of the world to unite, Marx promised they had nothing to lose but their chains because uniting removed the fears imposed by management. Being united means not fearing loss of job, illness, or leaving a family uncared-for if you die. It meant not having to fear making ends meet or having to fear the crap sold so expensively at the company store, etc.
Fear is a decision, which is the most insidious aspect of all this. Fear means we have decided to let something matter in our lives more than our freedom. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, we’re told. What are we keeping an eye out for? Threats to freedom, and as with FDR’s famous tautology, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. He was onto something.
Be brave. At least be indifferent. Stop being afraid. Once you do you’ll be amazed how life opens up for you on so many levels.
And yes, there are sensible fears. You should maintain context, balance, and perspective about fears. Gavin de Becker’s excellent book The Gift of Fear teaches us to pay attention to those qualms we have, to listen to our whispers of fear, because they are warnings of paths and people to avoid. Survival and thriving count on this: That’s part of the eternal vigilance.
When anyone or any circumstance tries to hand you a big bucket of fear, do not accept it. Let it drop and splash and drain away. Then you will be able to see, think, and act clearly. Fear fogs the mind. Fog clears with sunlight. Burn it off by shining light on any shadow or clot of darkness.
Stop fear and you start living free from all the control others continually seek to impose. It’s like coming alive for the first time, once fear evaporates. Wake up to fearlessness. Doing this would transform our world from crap to paradise. We stand in our own way. Clear a path and others will follow. A threshold will come and the tipping point will give us lives of kindness, support, and sharing. Imagine that.
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