Fear of The Unknown Is Creating Hysteria In Every Part of Our Lives And It's Becoming Accepted As The Norm
Being afraid of the unknown is not a new concept. From birth to death
we've been trained to fear everything for a very long time. The dangers
of modern life have a stranglehold on people’s imaginations.
Sociologists call the phenomenon a risk society, describing cultures
increasingly preoccupied with threats to safety, both real and
perceived, but most definitely imagined. Most institutions today,
whether they be academic, medical, religious, government and all others,
would not exist in the way, shape or form they do today if it were not
for the element of fear. The Earth you see before you today and the
Earth of the future will be at a distinct contrast when it comes to how
afraid we are of the unknown. Many of you see it coming already.
It's why wars exist. It's why modern medicine exists. It's why politics
exists. It's why laws exist. We fear everything, so we must naturally
attempt to control or prevent what we fear most. A majority of people
will agree that the world is more dangerous than ever before. Even in
the face of evidence that negates this misperception, there is no
relief. We lock our doors, say our prayers, marvel at our own pessimism
and then wonder why we still can’t get to sleep. We are immersed in a
culture of fear.
Neurolinguistic programming,
emulating psychosis, television, advertising, the illusion of terrorism
and several other remarkable concepts affect every facet of our lives
and our world at the expense of our health, safety and security.
If there is a disease, we must
develop a vaccine
or drug. If there is a terrorist, we must develop anti-terrorist
measures. If there are criminals, we must create laws. If there are
bullies, we must create
anti-bullying policies. It is our nature. It is human nature. Well at least when it comes to modern humans.
Try and access any social media platform on the internet without getting
bombarded by a fearful audience. It's impossible. People are scared of
everything. So they criticize, argue, belittle, antagonize and resort to
ad hominem attacks that focus on the character of others because they
cannot fathom a truth which is not their own. It's a protective measure
to guard against the unknown.
What Does Fear Do To Us?
Fear keeps us focused on the past and constantly worried about the
future. It creates desperation and indecision that paralyzes our logic,
thinking and actions. We can't live freely because we can't stop living
in fear.
People who are fearful are very hesitant to explore new concepts or
embrace other possibilities. You can always estimate the level of a
person's fear by how they explore new surroundings and inspect objects
around them. This ultimately affects our personality and how other
behavioral traits affect our physiology including what kind of impacts
these traits have on our overall health and life span.
There is an international consortium of scientists who are working
aggressively to find ways to control fear
in both the public and military. Is this the answer to our fearful
ways? Certainly not as the initiatives themselves stem from fear.
Fear is tearing our society apart. In the past, fear has engendered
solidarity, but today it throws wedges between all of humanity. This
isolation, in turn, renders the public ever more fearful. What’s more,
media outlets, politicians, modern medicine and businesses all have
learned to capitalize on this distinctly modern sense of dread, and thus
profit from finding ways to cultivate it. Until we find a way to resist
fear, we’ll live at the mercy of these emotional entrepreneurs--and in
doing so, be party to the personal, cultural, and political
consequences.
Much of our concept of ourselves and our attitudes as individuals in control of our destinies underpins much of our reality or
what we think about our existence.
A Negative Attitude Is The Basis of Cyclical Fears
When people retain negative attitudes about anything that disagrees with
their own version of reality, they are more likely to experience a
continued sense of fear than people whose attitudes are less negative.
Physiological markers such as heart rate and anticipatory anxiety always
increase when measurements are taken in people whose attitudes remain
negative.
Some of these attitudes are often based on a powerful association
between a fear and a negative feeling that is so strong, that many
people can't see or even think about the fear without experiencing that
automatic negative reaction. For example, many people around the world
devoted to their religion absolutely fear atheists. They refuse to
relate to their position. They will not even conceive the right of
atheists to their own opinions and feel extremely threatened by any
content promoting the principles of atheism. The same can be true if we
reverse the two roles. Neither position will ever advance the other if
each can only think negatively about the other. This creates
self-righteousness, divisions of superiority and of course ignorance.
Negative reactions to the unknown instills a sense of weakness in our
character, specifically a lack of strength in our own convictions. When
people have the need to strongly chastise others for their opinions and
information they present, it shows a genuine deficit of attributes
related to confidence about our own belief systems, morals and values.
Those who have confidence in their doctrines do not have to identify all
those things they dislike so much in others or attempt to magnify those
flaws to please their own conscience. In essence, they feel they must
right-fight to support their own belief system since in their minds, a
competing system must be incorrect.
Modern Fear Is Viral
What’s unique about 21st-century fear is how people experience fear.
Since the 1980s, society at large has bolted frantically from one panic
to the next. Fear of crime reduced us to wrecks, but before long we were
also howling about deadly diseases, drug abusers, online pedophiles,
avian flu, ebola, teens gone wild, mad cows, anthrax, immigrants,
environmental collapse, and--let us not forget--terrorists.
“There isn’t a single fear that defines our era,” says sociologist Frank
Furedi, author of Culture of Fear: Risk-Taking and the Morality of Low
Expectation and Politics of Fear: Beyond Left and Right. “What we have
is a more promiscuous, pluralistic form of fearing. The very important
implication to this is that while my parents feared together, you and I
have a more isolated, private experience. We fear on our own.”
Our brains are poorly equipped to weigh risks that don’t result in
immediate negative consequences. Marketers, politicians, and
entertainers grasp with precision how brains misfire, and they apply
this knowledge to great gain. Few can doubt how well fearmongering has
worked for pharmaceutical companies who use the fear of disease to sell
drugs and vaccines by the billions.
As networks battle for ratings and newspapers grasp at disappearing
readers, the urge to lead with sensational stories grows. The gap
between the reported and the commonplace skews our subconscious
stockpile of reference points, while hunger for the next big story
inevitably broadens our catalog of things that go bump in the night.
It's Time To Abandon Fear To Change This World
People need not abandon fear altogether. Our ability to judge risk is
sophisticated, and instinctual decisions often serve us well. But when
something doesn’t quite seem to sync up, gut to head, then it’s time to
pause and at least question what’s causing the discrepancy.
The new Earth will see people working to reduce or eliminate fear like
never before. If you have a fear, first understand the nature of the
object that arouses it. Let us say you are afraid of your future. What
you really fear is the uncertainty that surrounds events yet to happen.
By living totally in the present and by planning ahead you can reduce
the uncertainty and fear. You cannot plan for all uncertainties but
being prepared to an extent reduces your fear of uncertainties. Learn
the art of enjoying it, too.
The psychological programming inside you, your subconscious mind, should
change before any real change can happen. Your subconscious mind
comprises engrams -- mental traces that have been created over life
experiences. These consist of both positive and negative associations
and act like computer programmes. So long as the programming remains the
same, the computer will function only in the manner dictated by that
programme.
Similarly, we have to change the programming of our mind. Wise thinking
leads to discrimination of the good and the bad. When you have changed
your programming, you start perceiving and acting positively. So it is
wise thinking that holds the key to a positive frame of mind.
Once people start thinking this way, it’s impossible to stop: Every
television program, every advertisement, every stump speech that hangs
its hat on scare tactics will be thrown into acute relief. That is where
we are headed. We are all eventually going to give up allowing fears to
define us, and focus instead on which ones are worth tackling together.
When we do that, we won’t just free politicians from fear-inducing
rhetoric or stymie fearmongering marketers; but we'll also give
ourselves some much-needed relief.
Reprinted from article by Marco Torres
Prevent Disease
