Even if You Don't Know That Fear Exists Fear Still Knows That You Exist
Reclaiming Our Lives
The dominant emotion in my life so far has been fear, which is a surprising revelation for someone that thought of himself as fearless. But it was so omnipresent that I first learned to live with fear, then I learned to ignore fear and finally, I forgot that I am scared all the time. This is not a pleasant state by the way - even if you don’t know that fear exists, fear still knows that you exist.
Fear has a bad reputation and I understand why but actually it is as beautiful an emotion as any. It warms you inside, it saves your ass when danger looms on the horizon and it doesn’t leave a trace if processed properly but has improved your frequency after it has left. But all the above is only true for the sort of fear that our cavemen ancestors experienced. The kind of fear that tells you “If you don’t run now you are dead” - or a least in serious trouble.
Unfortunately, fear is used less and less in moments of imminent danger as it was the original purpose. Today, almost all our fears are projections for the future. Will I find a partner? Will I still have an income when I am old? Will I find a job if I don’t study at university? You can worry about such questions to some extent but fear is useless and worse than that. Overusing and over-experiencing fear like most of us do today is disintegrating ourselves and our society.
Fear as a projection into the future is a problem because of the severe side effects that this emotion has. Since fear is supposed to warn us of life-threatening events, the reaction of our body to fear is pretty intense. Fear demands a lot from your system - a body in fear deeply plunges into its reserves and you need a lot of time for rest after a fear reaction.
Still, we are almost trained to be in fear almost all the time - if that is an intentional design I do not know. But we fear for our future all the time and above all we fear each other. We use fear to motivate others or ourselves and this is completely the norm. We choose professions that we don’t want and partners that don’t match and parties that are against our interests - out of fear.
In my opinion, this omnipresence is rooted in the loss of our tribal structures that we are supposed to live in. And don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating that all of us should live as hunters and gatherers again (although it might be healthier for some). But I think we should try to implement tribal structures in our daily lives.
To understand what that looks like I should define a tribe first. In my understanding, it is a group of at least a dozen souls that is bonded together by the shared understanding of mutual security. Of course, there is a basis of love and trust but additionally, there is an unwritten contract that the group secures the individual and that the individual secures the group.
We forgot that the best social security system in the world cannot substitute the security a tribe gives. We started to believe that governments can do that but we are beginning to understand that that was a misconception. At least I am beginning to doubt that the German government will take care of my pension in 40 years and Germany is one of the most stable countries in the world.
For generations, fear has been entering our daily lives in the exact same proportion that governments have expanded their patronage of our fates. We gave up oversight about our food, justice, health, our security just to name a few to governments that rule over a billion people sometimes and since we cannot see and comprehend the mechanics of the distribution of these commodities, the seed of mistrust has been planted which allows fear to grow.
I am not arguing per se against modern life. I am a big fan of human rights, health care, and Zoom calls, but ignoring the downsides would be stupid. And I don’t think it is a coincidence that a troop of monkeys rarely exceeds 100 individuals. It is just hard to know more than 100 individuals in person and to trust that someone will share food and shelter with you needs personal contact.
Ideologies simulate a bond that only exists in a tribe
In order to make people trust their governments to provide them with food and security we invented ideologies. Since you cannot know all the people that are ruled by the same entity alongside you, an artificial bond had to be invented. We had a few of them along the way starting with kings sent by God, now its democracy. Men and women glued together by ideologies were able to form huge armies, build pyramids, and land on the moon. So, it works to some degree - but it works like walking on crutches, you move forward but it hurts.
It hurts because there are disadvantages. For example, we lost trust in our abilities to the same extent we gave away our responsibilities since we started to believe we don’t have to take care of our lives anymore. A muscle that you never work degenerates. And if there is no need to truly take the fate of your life into your own hands, you start to believe that you are incapable of doing that. You lose a sense of agency, you start to feel ruled by forces beyond your control and you start to live in fear.
As a result, we start to live in fear basically 24/7. This is pretty bad because first of all, constant fear totally overwhelms our system, makes us vulnerable to conspiracy theories, isolates us from friends, families, and ourselves, and undermines the very structures that should give us security. And secondly, all the useless fear makes it impossible for the useful fear to make us see all the dangers that actually exist.
To get out of the fear frenzy I think we should work on two fronts. On a social level we should try to gain security by implementing a tribal level into our modern world and not everyone has to buy property in the mountains to do that - I think there are simpler ways. Again, I am not saying that we should throw overboard all the gifts modern life gave us but we should definitely start to order more from people whose first name we know instead of using Amazon.
And on a personal level, we should really try to regulate our fears and limit them to situations that fear was actually designed for. Do not fear for the future, try to trust nature’s abundance and that the universe provides. Find friends that will always give you food and shelter in case of emergency and without realizing it you have started your own tribe.
check out this podcast episode about leaving the cage of fear
