Fear is one of the greatest mechanisms for control.
Since the beginning humans have felt awed and overwhelmed by the force of nature and the natural world. I can only imagine the level of fear in experiencing the first thunder storm or other powerful acts of nature. Before the mind and science had developed, it was all simply a mysterious phenomena to which we were without understanding or control. It seems that having a sense of control offers us a sense of safety, even if it is false. We learned that if we came up with explanations or stories for why things happened, we felt safer. Perhaps that is why creation stories first emerged, religion and later the field of science. The more we could measure and explain the safer we felt and the greater our sense of control. The irony here is that we have been given these amazing minds that can actually ponder the nature of existence and formulate to no end. We can think ourselves silly and honestly not ever arrive at an ‘answer’. So, we needed to create ‘stories’ and find explanations to create a manageable container.
In Al Gore’s book the Assault on Reason he has a chapter on the Politics of Fear. He is addressing fear in so much as it counteracts ‘reason’. I believe it is this mechanic of fear that disenfranchises us from the grounded and even more powerful space of authentic love, being and deep wonder. He quotes Edmund Burke from pre Revolution times as saying “No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.” He continues to address the forefathers worries that when fear displaces reason, ‘the result is often irrational hatred and division’. We have countless examples throughout history of this: Slavery, the genocide of Native indigenous people and the murder of folk medicine women of the NE in the late 1600’s…..and this only names a few atrocities. It doesn’t mention examples of the subtle ways we treat one another on a day to day basis.
My continuous desire here is to peel back layers. I have no answers, simply questions I ask of myself since I come from this human family tree and I’m part of this pay it forward legacy. All of us are connected into the mindsets, collective conditioning, behaviors and belief systems of all that have come before us. I cannot draw you the map to explain exactly how that might be true. (but there are maps and equations within quantum physics, biology and spirituality that can connect the dots of this ‘truth’.) My knowing it is ‘true’ comes from allowing myself to disconnect from the systems put in place to actually ask questions and to see/feel things from many perspectives both in body and mind. Sometimes I may arrive back into the familiar territory where I began but no doubt I am changed by the journey of the question.
All that I write are curiosities, ideas and opinions and none of them are static. The depth of our existence and the infinite nature of the world is not definitive. Even as we try to make it such, there will always be a new thread or evolving layer to discover. All of this is simply a springboard and it is ever shifting as each of us is certainly ever shifting.
Soundbodywisdom 