Quick question: Where are you right now?
I’m guessing you’re at home.
If you’re not at home, then by all means, go home. Leave work, school, whatever, and just go home. I’m trying to prove a point. Yeah I’ll wait.
…
You there? Good. Did you lock your door? Of course you did. Didn’t you hear on the news that there’s a killer on the loose? Stop chuckling at that rhyme and check again, before somebody breaks in and murders you again.
Wait, so you haven’t been murdered before? Have any wild animals attacked you in recent times? No? So why did you bother locking your doors?
Oh that’s right.
Fear.
In recent times, it dawned on me that the world runs on fear.
A deep seated, often never-seen-or-otherwise-outwardly-felt fear that sits deep in our stomachs, often propagated to alarming levels by the media, ourselves, and anyone else who knows how to manipulate it.
Thank God we have that.
A long time ago, I wrote an article about how hate is the greatest motivator (go ahead and check it out). But after reading (and musing) on an article by @destinysaid, I realize now I might be slightly mistaken.
Sure, hate may be a top dog in the business of making you get shit done.
But fear reigns supreme.
Look around you. Wherever you may be, articles that reflect your endless fear surround you. The walls that surround you, the door you just locked, the fact that something as chill as a fridge (pun intended) comes with a lock and key. A fridge! Are we really that bothered someone wants to steal our expired milk?
When you got your first phone as a kid, your parents probably said it’s “so they’ll know where you are”, because they were afraid something would happen to you. Congrats on your new phone, you have fear to thank!
But who made the phone? Well, it was the guy who wanted to bring value to the world with the help of such an amazing tool, which he wanted to make available to everybody…for a price…for fear he would end up a penniless bum if he didn’t.
We have equipment that can detect asteroids that are almost about to hit us. ALMOST. Who the hell thought to do that? Well the guy who was scared that large rocks floating around our own large rock might disintegrate us, much like the dinosaurs got wrecked.
The early men created and cultivated fire, because they were tired of getting picked off one by one when the sun went down.
FOMO (fear of missing out) and the fear of boredom gets you off your butt and going to that party, which then gets you a social life, which then gets you a girlfriend/boyfriend, which then gets you a spouse, and now there’s a whole new fucking human being in the world.
Plus, that human being starts off fueled by the fear of disappointing you, so he works hard and gets an education and tries not to suck. Meanwhile you, who’s now struggling to be a parent who isn’t shit, is doing that because you’re afraid you’ll raise a lousy kid who’ll be a bum forever.
All because of fear.
Even something as mundane as a TV and a cool cellphone could be a sign of a fear of boredom, or not fitting in. That’s why the latest and greatest stuff feature groups of people just having the time of their lives, being together.
The only ads left that didn’t feature people together were the ones for body washes, but now they show the person after the fact, smelling like a million bucks and just living a great life.
Scared you smell like garbage? Well buy our soap!
So I guess the bottom line is fear is everywhere. People are worried that there are shadowy figures pulling strings and making things happen behind the curtains. Well, sure, they exist to some degree. But you know what those strings are made of?
Fear.
Fear is a good thing. It gets shit done. Sure, too much of anything is bad, especially if people use it to manipulate you, but preparation is key. In my country, we literally have ten-foot tall concrete walls surrounding most houses, with barbed wire for good measure. For protection. Against people. It’s fit to defend against a small, poorly armed militia.
Has such a situation ever come up? No.
But if it does, you bet your ass I’ll be ready. And you wanna know why?
Fear.
So, eagle-eyed observers may have noticed that this musing isn't quite... on par with the rest. That's why it's a rant.
Rants are ideas that get shot into my head at odd times of the day that I just know will disappear if I don't put them down. This particular idea had been floating around my skull, but I was prepping for a quiz so I couldn't put it up sooner (I actually wrote this minutes after the quiz, in the middle of another class).
Rants will have little to no photos (save for the chair at the beginning), but they'll probably only pop up when I'm choked for time and can't muse properly.
Well, that's it for now. Special thanks to @destinysaid for unwittingly dropping the idea for this in my head, and to the greater Steemit community who I'm sure will do the same.
Image Courtesy - Pixabay