Mastering Fear

Fear is a basic instinct that protects us from harm. We fear wild beasts, and we fear heights and storms and big waves. All of this is natural and important. It protects us from doing things that may kill us. However, it's not a very useful emotion beyond this. We don't think very clearly when we are fearful. We should therefore make an effort to control our fears so that we only experience this emotion when there's something truly dangerous and imminent.

One way of doing this would be to accustom ourselves to dangerous situations. We could take up sky-diving. We could spend endless hours playing war simulation games. We could riot in the streets. We could leverage up and play the stock market. All of this will make us face our fears and learn to deal with them. However, it's the exact opposite of what we should do. Constantly on the edge, we'll simply exhaust ourselves, and since we're facing things we should be fearful of anyway, we're not learning anything useful. It's not useful to simulate a war or engage in real confrontations in the streets, because these are situations we should avoid. The only types of fear we can usefully treat in this confrontational manner are phobias. A fear of cracked sidewalks is best treated by walking on cracked sidewalks. But what irrational fear is treated by jumping out of an airplane? None whatsoever. Irrational fear of height can be treated just as well by standing on a balcony. No-one needs to jump out of an airplane.

Constantly on edge, we end up more prone to anxiety, not less. We become fearful of all sorts of things, and we become easy to manipulate. We become blind to a number of real dangers that may seem quite benign. In particular, we become blind to the controlling impulses of psychopaths. Unaware of their trickeries, we fall into the trap of thinking that the people who scare us are the ones who can save us. Willingly, we give up our liberties to these people, unaware of their sinister intent.

However, if we protect ourselves from real dangers, we create for ourselves the environment required to become truly fearless. In such an environment, we can relax and contemplate changes in society that may hold dangers. We can plan and navigate accordingly. Always one step ahead of the crowd, we may even make ourselves a small fortune in the process.

The trick is to start with a complete retreat from all that is truly dangerous and stressful. We get out of our leveraged stock positions. We pay down debt. We stop fighting and bickering on the web and/or in the streets. We find a secluded place to live, far from any imminent dangers. Then we start positioning ourselves for things that may come. We buy gold to protect ourselves from price inflation. We home-school our children. We grow food in our gardens. We interact with our neighbours in positive and constructive ways.

Done correctly, a calm descends on us, and we only feel fear when things get truly ugly and imminent. Watching the flu unfold with this kind of calm, I was able to spot the hoax early. The climate hoax has been similarly unmasked, and the true danger of heavy taxation and loss of liberty has been revealed and dealt with through sensible measures. Our wealth has been protected, and our son has been taken out of school. If things get nasty, we have the means to deal with it. We don't have a fixed plan, but we're monitoring events, and will act decisively should there be a need for that. We're prepared, and have no fear of the future. That's more than can be said of my skydiving friend who constantly worries about climate change and the flu.

Skydiving

By Добромир Славчев Krdbot) Recommended by EugeneZelenko Regarding category Dobromir Slavchev (b. 1973) is a Bulgarian writer. I have presented a full correspondence between me and the author of the photos. The permission sent by the author of the photos is according to the template оn https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. I sent them by e-mail: permissions-ru@wikimedia.org Ticket link: https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom&TicketNumber=2020062610004069 Yours sincerely Denica Beneva - https://www.goodreads.com/photo/author/7121901._Dobromir_Slavchev, CC0, Link