Fear: Don’t.

“I am Pasquinel.  I come to you, unafraid.” – Centennial

Andre Celsius died in 1744 at the age of 43, though Daniel Fahrenheit would have insisted that Celsius was 103.

This is a week of frequently discussed topics here, or if not frequently, regularly.  On Monday, I posted about the looming Civil War 2.0.  It’s a topic that’s important, and one that will define whatever rises from the ashes of USA 6.0.  I’m calling it USA 6.0 because I number them this way:

  1. The Colonies (before 1776),
  2. The Confederation (before 1788),
  3. The Several States Constitutional Republic (before 1860),
  4. The Single State (before 1913),
  5. The Progressive Empire (before 1990), and
  6. The GloboLeftistElite Playground (ongoing).

Your mileage may vary, but each of these incarnations was different, and each of them rose from the remnants of what had come before.  It’s a pretty big and important topic.

So, that’s Monday.

I saw a war movie set in a campground – the battle scene was in tents.

On Tuesday, I talked about how the unbridled “compassion” of the GloboLeftistElite was choking the United States pretty badly, and that, regardless of their intent, it was setting up a situation where the economy along with the culture is becoming pure Weimar.

Never go pure Weimar.

But it’s Friday, so it’s time to return to another frequently discussed topic:  Attitude.

If you are religious, the biggest goal of the Enemy is to create literal demoralization in both senses of the word – to cause you to lose hope fill you with despair, along with causing you to lose your morality.  The second part is listed as an archaic part of the word, and that’s a shame.

When I pass on, I’m going to leave some lucky ready my arm bone, because I think that would be humerus.

If you’re not religious, don’t tune out – this applies to you, too.  You don’t have to believe in Him for demoralization to be a huge danger.  Deciding that nothing matters, or nihilism, is the gateway to deciding that anything is possible, and feeling despair is the gateway to nihilism.

Capital E or small e, this is what the adversary wants.

The reason that so much of the news media is set up the way it is, is to provide an echo chamber that makes us all feel alone.  Think a baby born with XY chromosomes is a male?

They did find the genetic cause of shyness, finally.  It was hiding behind two other genes.

That’s pretty much every sane person.  But the GloboLeftElite want you to think that you’re alone in having these thoughts.  They thrive on it.  They depend on it.

Why?

Because if you feel alone, you’re subject to manipulation.  Many people (women especially, because of the way that they’re innately wired), for instance, want to go along with the herd and believe what everyone else does, because to many, politics is just another form of fashion.  If the cool people believe it, well, shouldn’t we all?  I mean, the Europeans laughed at us for electing Trump!

So?

It’s a perception that the GloboLeftElite is trying to create in our minds.  The same way that Kamala has gone from one of the most unpopular politicians in recent American history to within cheating distance of taking the White House, the attitude that they want to instill in us is defeat.

I forgot the rules of chess, but then I remembered I was allowed to check.

And if we take that attitude, and accept it, we will lose.  There is a reason that one of the most repeated admonitions in the Christian Bible is “Fear not”.  Frank Herbert eloquently wrote this in Dune:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

I was an utter nerd in middle school, though I was also a noseguard so I never got picked on, and I had that passage memorized in seventh grade.  It was true when Herbert wrote it, it was true when I first read it, and it’s true today:  fear is certainly the worst emotion a human can have.

I firmly believe that the worst outcomes of my life are from those few times I gave counsel to my fears.  Nothing good ever came of it except the deep understanding that nothing good ever comes from it.  Now, when I cried, “Havok!” and let slip the dogs of war and gave it my all, even when everyone said that what I was about to do was impossible?

Good times, man.

To be clear:  we can’t lose.  Really.  I do understand and fully believe that we haven’t seen that darkest night, that time when we think that all hope is lost.  It’s coming.

And we’ll win.  The reason I am certain comes from the understanding that, no matter what the Enemy (or enemy) has done, it has never, ever kept us down forever.  I am not done.

I actually own an authentic human skull.  It’d show it to you, but I’m using it right now.

I haven’t finished doing what I was put here to do.  And if I do it, facing my fears directly, I know that I’m going to win.  And I know that, over time, after heartache and after piles of skulls and blood.

We win.  It’s inevitable.

And then, in some far distant future, we’ll have to fight again.  But that’s another story.

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

28 thoughts on “Fear: Don’t.”

  1. You don’t truly know a person until you see how they respond in a crisis. One of the interesting aspects of COVID is that it showed us the inner persona of our friends, family and coworkers. This was particularly true when the social isolation and peer pressure kicked in. Unfortunately, I lost a few friends during the pandemic once I saw what they were willing to do to assuage their own fear (e.g. being vocally supportive of forcing me and others to get the vax so that they would feel “safe”).

  4. Many times on Friday we discuss Movies. Today you wanna discuss Fear. OK. I can do both.

    I have on my YouTube list the video of the Radiohead version of the theme song to the James Bond movie Spectre, which just by coincidence I played again last night. Beautiful, haunting music. In general I don’t listen that much to Radiohead because they are just too depressing and indeed nihilistic. But I am a big fan of the Bond franchise (I’ve read every one of the original Ian Fleming books, which are literary masterpieces of their genre) and I gotta tell ya, the Radiohead theme for Spectre was PERFECT for that movie.

    The Bond movies with Daniel Craig are different from all the others in that they constitute a continuous storyline instead of episodic adventures. This is hard to recognize because the films took fifteen years to make but cover a much shorter narrative time. Spectre, the next to last, is the “darkest before the dawn” of this series. Bond is still trying to uncover the true circumstances surrounding Vesper Lynd’s betrayal and death. As Radiohead tells it… ” The only truth that I could see/Is when you put your lips to me…Fear puts a spell on us/Always second-guessing love…”

    Bond of course conquers his fears as he literally saves the world at the end of the next and last movie, No Time To Die.

    In point of fact, the Radiohead theme was rejected as too dark and replaced by the more upbeat Sam Smith tune, “Writing’s On The Wall”, which doesn’t mention fear at all. Instead: “…When all hope begins to shatter/Know that I won’t be afraid…”

    But being unafraid is a myth unworthy of James bond or any of us. Fear exists and must be faced and overcome. As John Wayne said, “Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.”

    Embrace your fear and overcome it. And enjoy a true-to-life Radiohead theme to Spectre as you do it.

    1. I thought Spectre was the best of the new Bond movies, though I didn’t watch the last one. Bond can’t die.

  6. Agree except for the supernatural enemy part. There isn’t one and neither is one required. That is the 2nd most powerful delusion of all. The one that conveniently abdicates our sovereignty, rights, responsibilities, and authority to a third party (higher power) because, after all, we are helpless you see.

    These are human problems that require human solutions. Religion is tailor made for human laziness. “I would love to do something, but I can’t. So I’ll thoughts and prayers and pay the mandatory 10% protection fee.”

    Even worse, not only are you born into original sin a fallen human POS worthy of burning in a lake of fire for all eternity merely for existing, but all of creation is fallen and in need of redemption as well.

    Whatever God’s disposition, I am 100% certain it’s not the fashion guru of tiny hats, surgeon general of penis clipping, nor a mafia boss running an extortion racket. It’s a collective human embarrassment.

    The devil isn’t laughing, but the people who wrote that crap certainly find it hilarious.

    1. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
      — Kevin Spacey/Verbal Kint/Keyser Söze

      1. Not exactly. The greatest trick of the devil is convincing people that he’s The Real Victim, unfairly hated and oppressed For No Reason At All.

    3. You’re BS. Sorry dude. You lose, scream at the sky, just like the rest of your tribe of Godless Marxists.
      Bear in Indy

    4. I’d say it gives purpose in a way a nihilistic, dead universe doesn’t. There’s also a significant difference between flawed humans and the way we interpret versus the ideal.

      YMMV, but I think the world is better off with God. I’m pretty sure He thinks the same way.

  7. Great essay!
    How often during the recent pandemic festivities have you been told “stay safe”? How often has someone replied “stay free” or “stay brave”, or even better, “stay brave, stay free?” Why not? People were quite fearful at the time, so it would seem to be vital to remind others as well as oneself of the importance of not succumbing to fear. I encourage all to respond to “ stay safe” with “ stay brave, stay free”. What makes it so important? Acting and speaking as though you are not afraid will actually make you less so, and saying “stay brave, stay free” may help the other person retain his courage. The words themselves remind us that being fearful is part of the road to serfdom. Also, a fearful people may not speak the truth when confronted with the lies of the powerful.
    https://drp314.substack.com/p/stay-safe-or-stay-free

  9. Brings to mind the Chuck Norris meme where he’s at a chessboard and he has only one pawn arrayed against a full board. He’s smiling and the caption is “Checkmate”.

    Steve S6

  10. “Fear. Terror. Panic. Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain. Do
    the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain. Once, twice, a hundred times,
    Andy Stevens repeated the words to himself, over and over again, like a litany. A
    psychiatrist had told him that once and he’d read it a dozen times since. Do the
    thing you fear and the death of fear is certain. The mind is a limited thing, they
    had said. It can only hold one thought at a time, one impulse to action. Say to
    yourself, I am brave, I am overcoming this fear, this stupid, unreasoning panic
    which has no origin except in my own mind, and because the mind can only hold
    one thought at a time, and because thinking and feeling are one, then you will be
    brave, you will overcome and the fear will vanish like a shadow in the night.”
    – Alistair MacLean – The Guns of Navarone

  11. “I had a race with a skull once.”

    Well of course you won.
    The poor thing didn’t have a leg to stand on.
    He should have quit while he was ahead.

  12. “Never give counsel to your fears.”

    – Gen. George S. Patton, from “War As I Knew It”

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