The Fear Economy
How to shift Consciousness by opting out of the
dominant paradigm of fear.
Ask anyone who’s even vaguely dialed in, and they know that the opposite of love isn’t hate.
No, hate is just projected fear, just one of the many faces fear takes through its insatiable lust for suffering. Many trumpet the claim that God and Love are synonymous, and if that is so, then why does so much of our world run on fear, God’s dialectical opposite?
What are we doing wrong and is this a big reason humanity teeters on the verge of its own destruction? Is this some form of mass suicide because deep down we fear everything, including ourselves, and the only relief is to wipe the slate clean and hope that some survive who are undamaged enough to start over?
No matter where you turn, fear is there, driving the capitalist industrial military complex, powering our unbridled and unsustainable economic growth, and stripping humanity from its true Divinity and creative light. From the time we are tiny children, we’re taught to fear almost everything. Children raised in fear-baked realities become fearful parents and each successive generation is then burdened with the weight and trauma of epigenetic fear that forms a fearful foundation and the mental health challenges that go along with it. Schools mostly frame learning in competition, judgment and shame, each stressor lathering on another thin layer of fear veneer to accompany young lives as they make their way into our fearful world.
Children raised under the cloak of certain religions are taught to fear not only those who don’t look at life the same way, but to also fear themselves, their human-ness, and most certainly to fear a judging and punishing God. Across the expanse of media — television, news, video games, social media and every other delivery mechanism, fear is the dominant narrative, and funding it, the advertising that tries to convince us that we aren’t cute, young, smart, sexy, cool, wealthy, or just downright fabulous enough, unless we buck up and buy what they’re selling. And if we don’t have the money, better get a massive student loan so you can get the right education at the school you can’t afford, to get the right job that takes over your life, so you can buy the right shit you can’t really afford, so you won’t be so afraid, until you get your credit card bill at the end of the month.
Fear is big, big money.
Policy and public welfare have fallen to fear’s ruthless sword, our politics creating such a powerful duality that people knowingly vote against their own best interests, just to effectively project their fear against ‘the other’ at the polls. In the United States, the vast majority of congressional votes map directly to partisan lines, despite the clear injustice, cruelty, and inhumanity for doing so.
Fear gets votes. Fear wins elections. Fear starts wars.
Fear makes people unwell, yet we drink from the tap at every turn in our modern world, momentarily jacking ourselves up on those little hits of dopamine and adrenaline, brought to you by your friends at Fear Inc. And our modern medical system, dominated by our unhealthy fear of death, runs around putting their fingers in the dike of a sickening, saddening world being fed poison passed off as food with a double serving of fear for dessert.
Above all, fear Nature, people. Wrap yourself in non-biodegradable, single-use plastic and pray that the pandemics or pangolins don’t come knockin’ because, well, you could die!
All this fear, so little time. Or is there? Is it time we take the time to mindfully identify fear and refuse to engage? Shouldn’t we do more to NOT buy into the fear economy and instead start taking actions and pursuing activities that don’t feed the beast? What are some things you can do to raise your vibration from fear to love? Is it deleting that social media app? Not engaging with news media? Striking up a conversation with that person on the other side of the political fence? Kicking the violent video game habit and taking up gardening or mycology? Going for a hike and appreciating the Divinity of Nature? Or just taking lunch down to the beach and putting your toes in the sand, no phone in your hand, no feeds, no fear…just the sun, sand, sea spray, and a sandwich.
The simple pleasures in life are where love blooms, the quiet and still where the Divine speaks. Beginning a practice of awareness of the fear around you enables you to rise above it when it’s present and help the much-needed shift in human Consciousness that makes duality a relic of a previous lifetime. Together we can kill the fear economy and create a world where Love is the currency of a united, unlimited humanity — and it all starts with you.
Photo by Guy Borgford.
Section of assembly by artist, Brian White. [Found objects on wood paneling]
