I don't think I'm addicted to fear, but living with depression & anxiety all your life will give you a high tolerance lol so maybe I am, but just don't know it because I'm in fight or flight mode so much of the time.
You asked the question:
If fear is a drug, who are the pushers?
And I completely agree with what you say. Governments habitually use fear as a tool to manage people's expectations of what is acceptable behaviour for said government.
Mass formation psychosis is when a huge part of a society focuses its attention to a threat(s), leader(s) or a series of events. Their attention focuses on one small point or issue. Followers can be hypnotized and be easily led. Sound familiar?
They had a field day with covid, and now they're having a field day with the war in Ukraine. Don't get me wrong, I think the invasion of Ukraine is aweful and should end. But I also think the habitual apartheid against Palestinians in Gaza should end, the war in Yemen should end, the legalised rape and torture of paid foreign servant women in places like Saudi Arabia should end and a whole host of human rights abuses by China's government should end, but none of these other terrible things direct the public's fear/attention in the direction that European governments want their populations to focus right now.
I personally ascribed to what the late great bill Hicks said: All governments are liers and murderers.
Great comment @raj808
The mega blockbuster film production called covid was a clear example of government's not letting a good crisis go to waste. The multi billion dollar advertising campaign for this movie was record breaking to say the least.
A real pandemic does not need an advertising campaign, just like the sun does not need a 'do not touch' sign
About anxiety and depression, we all suffer from time to time but since I read the power of now and discovered frequency meditation I have not suffered from these illusions. We can't change the past and the future never comes. The NOW is where it's really at.
Yeah, as you say a pandemic doesn't need fckn advertising. Basically, the whole thing needed to be treated in a sensible scientific way, all the fear-mongering from government and media was transparent to anyone with even a modicum of intelligence.
In regards to this, I'm not in complete agreement with what you're expressing. I too have read 'the power of now' and love the way Ekhart Tolle points to the power of living in the present, as Buddhists and other practices ancient practices like the Dao Te Ching have helped people reach that state that facilitates healing both mentally and spiritually, Ekhart seems able to express these pointers in a way that the western mindset can grasp easier. I've certainly had many moments of 'no thought' listening to Ekhart speak, or just putting into practice techniques like body scanning.
But the part I highlighted above is where I'm not in complete agreement -
we all suffer from time to time- not true for people with clinical depression and anxiety disorder. They do NOT suffer depression and anxiety from time to time, it is there always in the background and from my experience, the practice then becomes to not identify with the suffering it causes. In the case of clinical depression and anxiety disorder, a chemical imbalance might be happening in your brain, but teachers like Ekhart Tolle have helped me immeasurably in allowing me to disconnect from the reactive habits that form as a kind of defense mechanism. Often through years of learned behaviour, these defense mechanisms often don't work anyway, so letting go of them becomes a liberation. And as you said, when you can live in the now, even for a short time, that is truly life-changing.Fear is the worst way to live, and for me as long as I am taking steps toward the positive mentally or physically, it takes the sting out of the tail of fear. And eventually letting go of it all together is true magic.
Agreed.
Yes, Eckart Tolle is great and getting the message across to westerners, before him I found Alan Watts to be a great teacher, though he claims he has nothing to teach.
Thank you for the interaction @raj808
I love Alan Watts too and really like listening to chillstep mixes of him speaking on Youtube. It seems like a strange thing but it kinda works, Alan Watts dropping some wisdom with chilled out music in the background.
I like listening to it when walking through town if it is particularly busy.
This one resonates with me at the moment as I'm writing a series of Haiku and reflections on the chapters of the Tao Te Ching (the Dao).