The Only Way Forward is to Acknowledge Each Other’s Fear
The deeper reason for our collective anxiety is not a virus
photo by Miguel Bautista on Unsplash
I’m getting tired of the polarization that is going on around me. Not in real life really, but in hyperreality out there.
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. You know, big tech censor-land.
Happily, I still have some great friends, that I know for more than 30 years, they both got the jab and still love me. We exchange hugs.
17 months of propaganda in the biggest sales pitch ever in the history of humankind, combined with the biggest and most irresponsible fear-mongering media campaign of all times is asking its toll.
Christianity scaring the shit out of people with their brilliant marketing tool, hell, lasted 500 years and ended with trying to kill everybody who didn’t believe. Probably that was worse.
But still.
With the help of a very good friend, I’ve figured out a possible way forward.
When somebody is in freeze from fear, is suffering from tunnel vision, is highly contracted into spasms of outrage, finds him or herself trapped in dangerous groupthink, demonetizing fellow humans, we need to realize that these are all defense mechanisms.
When you constantly feel you need to defend yourself, you can’t think straight anymore
The defense that millions get triggered in these days all come from fear and a deep-felt unsafety.
I get it. I have the same fear.
It’s the fear for a society changing so fast that my basic security, my making sense of it all, my old patterns and ways to meet life to understand what’s going on.
All of that doesn’t work anymore.
The only thing I need is to be acknowledged in my fear. This will bring back my safety and a sense of belonging, togetherness.
The only way forward, the only step that will make a change, is to start acknowledging the people in the other camp, over there, that they’re in fear too.
How did we get here
The root fears that most of us experience these days is that change is happening too fast. Our society is rapidly shifting into a new normal. Imposed or not, it’s a radical change that nobody saw coming in 2019.
Shoot, that’s almost 3 years ago already.
The fourth industrial revolution is like a typhoon raging over our heads, leaving a vacuum of power and sense-making.
Do we really want Crispr technology creating designer babies, DNA engineered biotech, weaponized drones, CCTV, optimized face recognition, state-run cryptocurrency, Robotics making 60% of our economy a ghost town, The Internet of Things making everything trackable and hackable, 5G that suddenly got activated during the lockdown, Climate Lockdowns, Social Credit systems, going cashless, Test stations, Vaccine passports, big data harvesting, and A.I giving you advice about your sex life?
That most of this is imposed, does matter.
It leaves us at the sideline powerless. Makes us observe the exponential growth of technology without hand breaks. Makes us shit our pants in fear.
Societies response to big industrial or technological revolutions is always delayed and needs to be ground up.
First, we all need to make sense of it all and reach some consensus.
When it is top-down, we call that a dictatorship, technocracy or authoritarian regime at best. Those are the entities taking advantage of the power vacuum that occurs in these periods of societal decay.
So there is enough to be afraid of, for all of us. Even the billionaires. Since they’re human too. Imagine a nightmare where you get chased by 799.999 angry Amazone employees. Not funny.
The way out
The first, best, and foremost thing to do know, is to acknowledge that the person in the other camp is in fear. Or even better, realize that there are not even camps. The polarization is created, and we fell for it.
It’s humanity’s biggest blind spot and misused once every so many years by despotic sociopath leaders that just do what they do best. Accumulate more power. In fact, that’s human too. The reason they could push the red fear button again is because of the rapid changes in society.
Let’s acknowledge this. We are all in fear. I get it. It doesn’t matter where it comes from.
Just as a side-note, when I was in bed for 3 weeks having delusions for 2 nights suffering from Corona, I was afraid too. I surrendered, survived, and am grateful for that.
I got your fear. In fact, I don’t care what made you afraid, I feel your heart in this, it's not cool to be afraid, for such a long time now.
I hear you.
The practice you can start with today and will change everything
When you’re a vaxxer and you see yourself blaming non-vaxxers for homicide. In fact, when you notice yourself signing petitions to re-open Auschwitz, maybe it's time to realize that non-vaxxers have the same fears.
Oh, and by the way, they’re humans too, living on the same planet.
Vaxxers need to be acknowledged. And anti-vaxxers also. There is nobody to blame, really. Just imagine for a moment how complex the world got in just under 3 years.
Please practice this when you have some healthy nerves left. Let’s call it the acknowledgment practice. It's a muscle we can train. Every day. Think about this when you’re about to respond to the other camp from a trigger, in defense of your righteousness.
In the end, we all live on the same planet. One day, all of us, die.
Hey there, on the other side, I love you.