Fear and its Trump

To start the day I share this quote from Facebook.com/glbtworld:

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

Good statement. Our birth gives us a future to work with and toward. Without it nothing. The second important day ~ when we find out why we were born ~ that’s a loaded concept.

Loaded because if we know why, we can do so much with out life. But sadly many don’t do the homework that brings them to such a realization. Maybe because the homework takes time, patience and hard work. But I have news for them: doing this work is not only necessary, it is rewarding. Yes. It gives us power and a sense of joy. The effort is very much worth it.

From Facebook.com/blogging for change comes this quote:

“What would happen if everyone cared?”

Indeed, what would happen? I can only guess but I think it would carry revolutionary results. Just imagine pleasant people actually caring about your welfare! Policy makers paying attention to the end results of their work benefiting others! Teachers actually teaching and helping students gain self control, self awareness and self actualization. Businesses caring about the needs of their clients and customers, not the profits from that caring. Oh, the profits will be there and in great supply because the customers will be astounded and return for more product and service from those businesses where they can obtain them.

From the Internet, anonymous unfortunately:

“Ignorance is the root cause of all evils. Knowledge eradicates ignorance. People hate out of ignorance and out of fear. So it is our duty to educate ourselves as well as masses around us.”

Armed with facts and knowledge we can understand our world. We can deal with it forthrightly, not in fear or trembling. With those facts and knowledge we can discover still more facts and knowledge. We can learn to learn, do research, come to conclusions about very complex issues. We can discern truth and value. In short we can live more fully and productively.  Without this foundation, however, we not only don’t understand the world around us, we are more likely to fear it. And fear is an element that distorts reality. We are less likely to trust. Less likely to know help when it is offered to us. In short, we make a bad situation even worse. And all by ourselves. The opposite is so much more pleasant. Let’s practice it as much as possible. In fact, let’s start with strengthening the education systems throughout the country.

This next quote was also found on the Internet. It is part of the script from the movie, “A Single Man”. Speaking the quotation is George, played by Colin Firth:

“Let’s leave the Jews out of this just for a moment. Let’s think of another minority. One that…One that can go unnoticed if it needs to. There are all sorts of minorities, blondes for example…Or people with freckles. But a minority is only thought of as one when it constitutes some kind of threat to the majority. A real threat or an imagined one. And therein lies the fear. If the minority is somehow invisible the fear is much greater. That fear is why the minority is persecuted. So, you see there always is a cause. The cause if fear. Minorities are just people. People like us.”

Well, there is the fear factor again. And succinctly put, don’t you think? The power of the minority, at least in the mind of the majority, is the sense of fear it contains. Actually, the fear is baseless, isn’t it? And if the fear were nonetheless present, education would eradicate the fear and show it to be baseless in the first place.

Fear. What a hold it has over us. Fear of differences. Intolerance. Poor understanding of issues. Lack of trust in others. So much negativity.

We hold the power in our own two hands to defeat the fear. All it takes is exercising our right to read, learn and vote. Meanwhile our system of government is at risk merely because others fear. Such irony we live with in America!

July 26, 2012