Fear. Everyone has it in one form or another, whether or not one is aware of it or not. Fear is something that is deep within, and is a manifestation of either weakness or uncertainty. Those who claim to be fearless are either naive (by choice or otherwise), or extremely certain of the outcome.
Generally speaking, there are few outcomes that are certain. Physical death, for example, is usually quite certain---there's no coming back from that for the most part. That's why those who have terminal illnesses (physical or otherwise) for example, after a period of grief and denial, eventually become fearless upon acceptance.
But I'm in no position to talk about fearlessness. Today I want to talk about fear itself.
Most fear uncertainty for the simple observation that uncertainty has a tendency to be unbounded unless extra thought is applied to apply mitigating factors that can reduce the range of uncertainty. This is what preparation usually entails---taking control over what we can control and doing the best we can in preparing for the eventualities that we can reasonably figure out. Whatever is left will still be uncertain, but at the very least that level of uncertainty is bounded. For those who want to further reduce their fear of the uncertain, they can pray and trust in God to take care of whatever else that they cannot take care, particularly so if they are believers. While there is never a firm guarantee that the outcome will be well for the person himself/herself (if the outcome can be guaranteed, it is no longer uncertain by definition), at least the believer can have faith in the actions of their righteous God who can do no wrong by definition.
As for fear stemming from weakness... I think that it is a reaction that comes from those who did not proverbially ``do their work to earn their bones''. If one had undergone the necessary steps rigorously to learn a skill or to come to power, without relying on shortcuts but instead go through a trial by fire to earn their skill or have their power invested into them by others, then one is less likely to feel that one is weak, imposter syndrome notwithstanding. Part of that reaction is based on the seeming interpretation of what others think about one, whether it is peers, or a more senior person, or even other governments.
Newsflash: no one on this wide Earth knows what they are doing, and everyone is making things up as they go along. The harshest critics of ourselves are ourselves, because we see ourselves every day, and we remember all the seemingly weak things that we have done compared to any other person. Only God knows what is going on at all times, and the rest of us just do what we can. Now while I said what I said, I want to point out that this doesn't mean that there are no degrees to the ``correctness'' of the things that people are making up as they go along---that's what the ``exercising of one's judgement'' means. The ``judgement'' here is more ``discernment'' than ``pronouncement of whether a person is righteous or not'', and it should be applied to the courses of actions that one can take as opposed to applying it to others.
I raise this issue on fear here because I had been thinking about the whole competitive nature of things, as well as how some governments get so thin-skinned over criticism on the ways that they do things. A government that gets its mandate of governance through the direct support of the people as opposed to being parachuted into their position tends to be one that has higher levels of trust from the people, and thus have a tendency to be less likely to be fearful of any critics---they know that they have the unpressured support of the people, and are thus freed up to concentrate on doing the right thing instead of just appearing to do so. Unfortunately, in many systems of government, the process in which the mandate of governance is obtained has been corrupted into a byzantine one that naturally favours the incumbent instead of the one that is actually good for the people. And when the results are not sufficiently favourable to the incumbent (despite winning), the process gets further mangled to bias more towards the incumbent in the next round.
Fear does power a lot of vicious cycles. Arms races are the most obvious ones, and so is the more recent ``race to zero'' economic races in some sectors of industry. A key leveller that the people of old didn't have then that we do now is fast global communications. Information can flow from one part of the planet to the other some how, and with it comes the ability for those who are oppressed under the fear to band together in solidarity and create their own bloc to push back. How they push back though will determine if they end up assauging the fear that the oppressors feel, or exacerbating it causing an even larger backlash.
Humanity's greatest strength [of banding together] is also its greatest weakness, because those of the like amplify their own perceptive reality. Truly homogeneous societies amplify their perceptive realities much faster and stronger, but not necessarily for the better. A better understanding might lead to the reduction of uncertainty, and allowing systems that promote capability independent of socio-politico-economic ability can produce people more certain of their strength and less worried about weaknesses imaginary or otherwise. But these are the ideal---I doubt that we can achieve this in real life.
And so fear will still rule this world and drive much of the associated suffering from the many vicious cycles.
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