Negative Geez by CH3SH1R3 M4TT	Last Updated: 04 July, 2010
Modern Philosophy

Fear is Comfortable 06/04/10 Fear is as important to a human as love or happiness ever could be. As counterintuitive as it may seem, fear actually helps us to be calm and to focus our attention on important tasks. One could argue, however that fear doesn't seem to focus us and keep us calm, and you'd be right, except when you consider the long term effects any particular fear can generate. It all stems back to human evolution, when mankind lived in small unprotected villages, sometimes deep within dangerous jungles. To an early human, fear was the only tool they had for survival, a primal imperative to either fight or flee when confronted with a threat. This hard-coded programming present in every mammal from humans to dolphins, and from elephants to mice provides us with the ability to handle high pressure situations in an appropriate manner so as to ensure the continuance of our lives. Take for example the scenario in which our token caveman is washing himself at a brook in a river, a commonly used watering hole for a family of rather hungry tigers. Our caveman, lets call him Fred, is enjoying the feeling of the water rush past his feet as he stands on the riverside when he hears some rustling in the trees off to the side. His instincts instantly kick in, pumping adrenaline and a host of other powerful biological chemicals into his system which instruct his every muscle to react in a way that nature has designed to be one of the best strategies in survival, a response scientists have called the "Fight or Flight" response. This pre-programmed instinctual behaviour produces just one of two possible consequences: either the subject is prompted to immediately stop what they are doing and run, far and fast, or alternatively, if running presents less of a possibility for escape, the subject will become aggressive and defend themselves. This is akin to backing an animal into a corner, if you eliminate the possibility of escape, the only viable option is to then eliminate the threat by means of force. These instincts that most animals feel, were an important tool in the survival of early man, they helped us assess and determine what to do about immediate and lethal threats, but as humans began to live in societies the function and application of these instincts became ambiguous and vague. The point being that when you organize your society in a structure that focuses on the protection and inclusion of all individuals, you really don't have the need for such a strong and compelling instinct which guides your response to dire scenarios. The problem here, is that evolution is relatively slow, and humans have built up their society relatively quickly, so natural selection sometimes gets pushed aside in favour of societal selection, otherwise known as civilization. This leads to dormant feelings in all of us, almost a gaping a hole where our ancestors had a constant nagging fear of death by tiger or wolf. Somewhere along the lines, in between flint-axes and iPods it became apparent to our leaders that this gaping hole in our psyches existed and they set about mending the void. They realized that the lack of any coherent source of fear was leading to anxiety in their peoples, after all, that mechanism in the brain is working away 24-7 regardless of whether or not there really is anything to worry about. In fact it became evident that should they wish to retain some kind of civility among the masses, that not only would they have to fill the gap, but they would indeed be able to better manipulate their subjects if they filled it properly. So, our leaders set about the task of giving us something to worry about. And it works. If you take away everything a person has to be afraid of or worry about, you would imagine that to be quite a stress free life, but this is not the case, in fact someone with nothing to worry about will probably seem a bit disturbed to the rest of us, certainly not well adjusted. The feeling of having some specific threat to worry about and concentrate concern towards is essential to keeping us humans focussed, making us feel like our actions have purpose and actually keeping us AWAY from huge amounts of anxiety. After all the enemy you know is much better than the enemy you don't. Even modern politicians are aware of this element of human nature and utilize it to their full advantage. When times are rough governments all around the world are quick to point fingers and accuse not only people but natural phenomenon of being our enemies. This gives us a direction to put any fear, anger, hate, sadness, and any other negative emotions we have towards a goal, rather than end up self-destructing due to repression or lack of expression. Turns out fear is actually a comfort state. So when someone tells you that all we have to fear is fear itself, tell them you're not afraid of fear, tell them you're afraid not to have any. -CH3SH1R3 M4TT Share

HOME © 2010 All Rights Reserved