The Opposite of Fear

It follows from what I wrote yesterday that the opposite of fear is love. That may sound odd. But on closer scrutiny, it appears to be right. The opposite of fear is of course fearlessness. However, fearlessness comes in two flavours. One which is truly fearless, and the other that's merely reckless. Jumping out of airplanes and climbing steep rocky surfaces is more often than not a way to cover up for deep seated fear than a real sign of fearlessness. I have a friend that does this type of things. Yet he walks diligently around with his mask on for fear of the virus.

On the other hand, I've started wearing my mask around my arm to signal opposition to the mask mandate. It's a statement. I'm not afraid of the virus, and I'm not afraid of any hobby fascist that may feel tempted to put me in my place. While this would have provoked the ire of many back in the days when most people still believed in the hype, I'm now being approached by people in friendly and inquisitive tones. People engage me in small talk. They know from my signal that I'm not going to react to them in fear or anger. Hungry for human interaction, they latch onto my signal.

People long for a return to the good old days when everybody did their little "good morning" and "good day" thing, and asked strangers for the time of day or the nearest hardware store, etc. That was a time of little to no fear. Everybody minded their own business in a framework of love and respect for other.

This insight may come in handy as we go forward, because I sense the imminent arrival of something sinister, and I've been wondering how people will react when they realize the mess we've made of everything. The vaccinated will almost certainly become ill in large numbers, and the economy is in similar trouble. We may get the double whammy of a real plague and hyperinflation. If so, how will people react? If they were close to panic by something as harmless as the fake plague, won't they go completely bananas in the face of a real plague?

The answer may at first seem obvious. Everybody will go nuts. However, this misses an important point. The fear we've seen so far has been artificially generated and promoted by politicians and journalists. A real plague may well be toned down rather than hyped, especially if there's a link between the fake scare and the real plague. This means that we may end up skipping the fear part and go directly to despair.

Imagine a worst case scenario where Monkeypox spreads like wildfire through the vaccinated part of the population, and this happens in the midst of a hyperinflationary meltdown. Mass media will no doubt downplay what's going on. They will claim that things are under control and that there's nothing to worry about. To the extent that there's something sinister going on, it's all due to greedy capitalist store owners and the unvaccinated.

People will first react to this with a mix of relief and renewed scepticism towards unvaccinated people. But mounting evidence to the contrary will break the spell. The vaccinated get sick and prices keep going up despite restrictions of all kinds. Once the situation becomes obvious, fear will turn to despair. Everybody will long for the fearless to save the day, and that's when we step in to help our nearest and dearest. That's when the fearless prove that the opposite of fear is in fact love.

Liberty