Everyone is afraid. From the teenage boys who hide under identical over-sized gray sweaters and hoods like escape convicts, to teenage girls who hide in carefully dressed packs, to the aged hiding in their traditional views and ways of dress, to the elderly afraid to leave their front doors at all. Most people show fear in various personal ways, but I always see it in their eyes, in their body language. So the question presents itself … what do people fear?
I remember a day, years ago now, when I waited in the back seat of my parents’ car while mom did some extra shopping in the mall of the town where I am currently renting. I was bored, but thoughtful like always, and with innocent curiosity looked about me. To my surprise every person, man or woman, who got out of their cars exhibited a bold look of fear in their eyes. Each left the security of his or her car, and stood in a parking lot where they had no doubt stood many times before, with wide eyes of fear, and looked about them slightly, and walked with that open aura which only comes from fear (not to be mistaken with the open manner of fearlessness; the difference is extremely hard to explain, so perhaps I’d best let it drop.) They’d walk into the mall almost like it was a mouth about to gobble them whole. I was quite fascinated with this puzzle, and figured that the only cause for their fear could be the location itself; the large parking pot (well, large for around here), and the mall. (The fear was of course my own interpretation of what was around me at the time.)
Only one man showed no fear. He pulled up in an old beat-up Ford truck, a bunch of junk in his pick-up (no doubt it wasn’t junk to him.) He had a cane and had trouble walking around (and this usually causes people to become self-conscious, but this fellow obviously did not consider himself a handicap.) He did not walk around like many guys do out here in the country; with raised shoulders and lots of snorting and banging things loudly, looking for someone so they had a reason to speak loudly. No, this fellow simply walked from his truck, got something out of the back (some sort of gadget, didn’t know what it was and I can’t remember its description), and walked to the mall with some difficulty (as you might imagine.) But there was no trace of fear in this man. He was like a duck in a lake, a frog in a pond, or an eagle in the air. He was in his element, and was so wherever he went. I couldn’t help but think that he had some sort of Zen about him, even if he didn’t realize it himself.
(The above is an account I had had, and I don't normally see everyone wide-eyed with fear all the time. Although in the city people are more lost and you will see less emotion in them all around.)
This instance struck me and ever since I’ve been much more observant about how afraid people are, and how few people are truly unafraid. What causes fear, I am beginning to think, is a reluctance to accept one’s environment, for whatever reason. If that were the case, not accepting the big, cold look of a flat paved parking lot and the big square design of a business ready to gobble you up might cause you to feel ‘out of your element’, and thus afraid (like finding yourself in the woods at night, and realizing all the dangers -- the points that could blind you, the predators that are prowling and can see, etc.) Perhaps then that’s all it is, and there is nothing deeper or more complex behind it.
But thinkers love to think, and I find myself wondering if there is, perhaps just excited by the concept of digging up some great insight on the human race (they say curiosity killed the cat, but cats are forever curious, for it is in their nature, and the mystery never ends.) Perhaps fear comes from a much deeper place, perhaps some part of us that knows instinctively that what we’re doing is wrong; forcing ourselves to do things, or do things in ways, that are unnatural, as well as knowing there should be grass where there is pavement, a friendly cultural gathering place where there is a big cold corporation sat before them like a waiting predator, that inside there should be natural food products and care-developed household items to be cherished, instead of fast-food and cheap pots and pans with dangerous chemicals on them. I think it is this deep knowing that causes the rejection, or, or perhaps thus, the fear.
Yet for something so wide-spread, so everyday, it is all but buried in the sand. You never hear people talking about how afraid they are, or even about how afraid other people are. If a school shooting or gang rape occurs, people use the usual list of words such as rage, hatred and evil. But I never hear the word fear used, except as a marketing tool to pitch the story -- oh how afraid the students were that they’d be shot, or how afraid the women on this street are of being raped! But fear is never talked about as a driving factor for extreme actions, and it is never talked about as normal feeling that nearly everyone shares. While I’ve been writing this I’ve heard the insane panic of sirens ripping through the neighborhood. Memories of this morning float through my mind; where police cars were sitting outside the parking lot, a person in the back of each as their accounts were written down, after a man had verbally attacked a worker and she had responded in physical violence, from what I heard. I’m sure they were each using words like ‘anger’ and ‘aggravation’ to describe the emotions involved, perhaps even ‘threatened’, but I doubt ‘fear’ was one of them.
The thing is, as strange as this may sound, and as glorious for an article on the subject as it may be, people are afraid of admitting they are afraid. Needless to say high school is insane, and whatever the reason for all the fear in the first place the fear-driven, institutional environment would frighten most anyone who was a social equal inside it. For the elderly, they are old and have many weaknesses, and the outside world does present many dangers and difficulties for them. But for young healthy adults, full of ambition and determination, to have such fear inside them … that I can’t escape. Something is wrong.
So what is the source of all this fear? Of course television shows and popular authors such as Stephen King make a lot of money from frightening people, not to mention theme parks and heavy metal bands. But how could they be solely to blame? If there was no fear to begin with, they simply couldn’t have built careers off it. No, this is something internal, not external -- although I feel the external world may be the cause, or at least the trigger. Spiritual wisdom suggests that fear is a natural happening; something which just springs up from an awareness of weakness (like of the woods at night.) If that is true, then there is an actual threat to us in our environment which causes us to be afraid of it. And since people are always clinging to everything -- socialism and occultism, game and media obsession, clubs and parties, chemicals and music infatuation, loveless committed relationships -- this leads me to believe that the danger society imposes is an ability to suck away people from themselves.
Seems right. How could a bird feel right without air, or a fish without water, or a polar bear without -- well you get the idea. If we stray from natural human culture, which is built from love and spiritual connection, and walk into a fabricated structure, such as an institute or shopping mall, then we have strayed from our element and have become lost. But just as a bird can wait out a storm, and a fish can find another channel of water from which to swim, there are those who carry a space of truth around them like a shield and never let their environment take them, and find new ways of spreading sanity around them, or new ways of finding it. Perhaps that is the role of the artist or storyteller in modern society; to spread sanity -- human truth -- through the walls of the corporate and institutional plane we call the modern world.
And of course, institutes have the duty to conform people into mindless functioning members of the corporate society. And business, especially the big corporations, don’t give a damn about people, the natural world, or the future of both -- they only give a damn about profit. We have betrayed the natural world -- Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden of Eden -- and have manufactured our own world of system and steel. We have raped the world of the majority of her natural resources, have grossly overpopulated her, and continue, as if with knowing pride, to do so to the very edge of oblivion (make no mistake, however you look at it, this mess we’ve gotten ourselves into is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.) We are living unnaturally, and it springs out at us everyday -- from all the BS of marketing, to the cold structures of business, to the soulless ravaging by industry.
So, is it any wonder that we’re afraid? Is it any wonder why physical and physiological reminders of our enforced system cause us to feel out of our element?
The solution? That would be a separate topic. But on the issue of fear, I’m afraid I haven’t an easy one. The only one I’ll give in this thread is a piece of wisdom we’ve all heard since before kindergarten: we should face our fears (whoever said curiosity killed the cat, had something to hide.)
Any thoughts? But then feelings might be more useful.
Subject: Fear 
Tue Nov 20, 2007 9:06 am
So when there is risk involved with fear, we need to take a look at the bigger picture or consequences. Going to the dentist might hurt physically, but anyone who has ever had an abcess can tell you that dentist pain is worth it in the short term for longterm relief! 
OURSELVES!! It all comes down to thoughts and how we choose to think them. This applies to external sources of thoughts too. We are warned about terrorist attacks and the dangers of our world all the time - we hold memories of the devastation of 911, so it is only natural to be scared right? I mean it could happen anytime, anywhere, and to anyone? Yup, it could. But so could a millionother random unrelated things. A smoker could develop lung cancer and die at anytime with no knowledge of it. A bus could hit you crossing the road. Someone could smash their car into the front wall of the restaurant you are eating at and mame or killyou or a loved one. The choice is yours - buy into fearful thinking and let it limit your experience of life, or choose to create safety for yourself. You can't affect any of those fearful situations - but you can affect yourself.
