Fear is a primal emotion with survival value. It has served to preserve life and limb in all of evolutionary history. And each of us has encountered fear in every stage of life - fear of the monster under the bed, fear of failure, fear of ostracism, of childbirth, of something bad about to happen to you or your loved ones — and of course, fear of death.
Benefits acknowledged and duly mentioned, we can look at the level of fear in the general population, its manifestations and consequences, to what is generating fear nowadays and whether it is an emotion that can slow one’s growth in consciousness, and do we need to mitigate it somehow?
As a doctor, I have watched the level of anxiety climb astronomically, in older people, in middle aged people, and especially in young people. The culture surrounding us is changing rapidly. Thinking about my childhood, I grew up with my mother doing the wash by hand, cooking every meal from scratch. No TV till I was ten - we would read and listen to the radio! But I always felt secure. My mother was home with me all the time. My father came home every night, drank rarely and never to excess, and never shared his worries with me. Today kids of the middle class (if there is still such a thing) are worried about their “online image”, about their gender assignment, and whether there will be a school shooting in their school today. Hiding under a desk to protect yourself from a nuclear attack has given way to active shooter drills that all to often are soon tested with an actual attack. Families are as likely to break up as they are to stay together, and abuse of the vulnerable is rampant. Even if it isn’t in your family, you are affected by the ambient energies and beliefs. Kids are exposed to everything under the sun on a tiny screen that has no morals. No wonder people are anxious and in fear!
Our moral standards have been eroded by those who should be pillars of decency. When is the last time you heard the phrase “my fellow Americans”, rather than more divisive, derisive and degraded comments?
