Fear

Fear is our greatest opponent. In many ways, it's our most basic emotion, fight or flight, hate or ignorance, wickedness or weakness, and when we see the evil that men can do, and we ask how they could have done it, the answer is often: they were afraid. So fuck fear.

But that's easy to say and difficult to do. I can admit that fear controls me in too many ways. I've discussed how my fear of failure and rejection limit my aspirations as a writer. And romantically, if I'm being honest, or too honest, as I often am. But even these personal, life-altering fears pale when compared to the fears we share when our lives our threatened, physically or existentially. My fear of failure only affects me and perhaps some of those close to me, but the fear of a group for its survival can have consequences for entire nations.

For instance, the fear of terrorism in the United States has had disastrous consequences on our civil liberties. Ironically, since fear is the goal of terrorism, if there is in fact a "War on Terror", Terror is winning decisively. The only way to win a war on terror is to not allow our fear to change the way we behave. It's natural to be afraid, but we can't allow that fear to dictate our behavior.

That's the trick. Acknowledging our fears, realizing which of our fears are real or imaginary, and acting accordingly. But even when our fears are based in reality, our actions need to reflect our values. I believe in liberty and equality. But these values may come at the cost of some amount of security. It's a price I'm willing to pay. Not everyone is.

Yet I can't be too critical of those who aren't. People are strange. While my fear of violence has little effect on my behavior, my fear of clicking "send" on an email to an editor does. Fear affects everyone differently. For those who don't share a fear, it's easy to ask others to act "rationally," whatever that means, while at the same time acting "irrationally" with respect to one of their own fears. There of course is a word that describes this kind of behavior. It's human.

But just because something is human, it doesn't mean it's all right. Human nature can also often be violent and ignorant. Fighting against these natural tendencies is essential for overcoming our fears or at least moderating our behavior in the face of those fears. And until humanity can learn to defeat fear, I will fear for our future.