Fear of the unknown

Even after so much advancement in technology and society, we humans still carry some of our primitive instincts. And I’m not saying that it is always bad, but today I’m going to talk about the negative aspect of one of our primitive instincts -- the fear of the unknown

Wikipedia: Fear of the unknown or irrational fear is caused by negative thinking (worry) which arises from anxiety accompanied with a subjective sense of apprehension or dread

With this fear, we tend to be skeptical and hostile towards things that we are unfamiliar with. For instance, kids growing up in a Muslim community would have negative thoughts about people who are not Muslim.

Take me as an example. When I was a kid (very small kid), I had been quite surprised when I found out that not everyone is Muslim since everyone I knew at that time (which was literally just family) were Muslim. As I grow older, I was more exposed to more diverse environment and I began to understand that everyone is different, and that’s totally okay. I am lucky enough to be raised this way and also had the opportunity to grow up abroad, I feel like it helps me to be a more open-minded individual.

These days we see many cases of xenophobia (or other 'phobia' alike), people displaying animosity towards anyone different from them. It’s quite often that we encounter issues that stem from the ‘us vs them’ point of view. Perhaps this happens just because those people have not been exposed to diverse environment. They have always been in their own bubble, socializing with people which are more or less similar to them, thereby feel anxious when meeting 'foreigners'. Or maybe they had a negative experience with a particular group of people thereby generalising that anyone belonging/related to that particular group has malicious intents.

One solution to this perhaps is by moving out of our comfort zone, getting out of our own bubble and getting to know more people with diverse background. This shapes us to be less judgemental towards others because in the end we are all just human beings, despite of the different colour, religion, nationality, gender, sexuality. I believe that at this point of time, it is no more relevant to judge a person’s quality solely based on their those superficial aspects.