Fear, under normal circumstance, is a feeling of anxiety about something. It is uneasy feeling of something worst will happen. It is emotional condition in which one feels that there is something to be afraid of and uncertainty about the future. A Persian poet once wrote:
There is one thing certain, the rest is lies, There is one thing certain that life flies, The flower that once bloomed forever dies.
As long as history has existed, there has not been certainty in any form except death. However condition yields itself to our service, advantages and benefits, it is impossible to take for granted that it will remain constant and consistent all the time. Fear positively impacts life as friend and negatively does as enemy. A belief that things we behold for sure today will continue into the future without any change is much subjected to speculation. The time to come is tainted with unanticipated uncertainties.
Dynamism rules. Fear is a two-edged sword that cuts both ways: The first is it can create a determination in the individual not to let go off the present opportunities, and not to return to the former difficult situation he had been through. The other edge is avoiding taking risk for fear that success may not be possible. All in all, fear is manifested in various forms beginning from family to country and at international levels with its positive and negative outcomes.
The fear of the unknown, what man is psychologically and emotionally bothered with, makes his life filled with oblivion, a state of being forgotten and having no memory of what is happening around, and loss of direction. Similarly, even in marriage, some husbands constantly worry about the fidelity of their wives and so do wives about that of their husbands. If such fear cannot be checked somewhere along the way as early as possible, the issue is overstretched and ends up in divorce; the tragedy of a broken family from which children suffer the most.
Along with this comes parents’ fear that their children engrossed in the social media and being exposed to all kinds of information, be it good or bad, will definitely affect their behavior unfavorably. This technology suddenly arriving as information of untouchable issues that has been hidden from them by their parents might confuse and ultimately depress them.
Such situation becomes unexplainably confusing and staggering; every step the man takes becomes meaningless as he fails to identify who or what to address. What is hidden from one’s perception creates the feeling of fear. It is expected of a human being, unlike animals whose activities are all instinctively impulsive, to be guided by the intellect, the situation that calls into play full understanding of how to go about with things he intends to accomplish.
It is psychological truism to say that feeling sand emotions will influence once capacity for accurate or objective perception. Fear of the unknown thus deprives the individual of the capacity to attain perception that sets a goal and objectives towards which he advances to achieve.
Innumerable persons have failed in life due to the fear of the impossibilities of the attainment of what they wish in life, from distance, before even trying them.
The speculation, what if I cannot succeed, commands their mind set and, thus, they give up everything before even starting it. Because of this, they remain short of what they are eager to achieve. Eagerness alone, the big brother of fear, may not lead us to where we aspire to reach.
One small good deed is much better than many great intentions. Fear ties us down to intention that is devoid of action; it incapacitates us to break out of the shell which blinds and shuts us out of the perception of realities in which we can come up with a tangible result.
On the other hand, to cite an example where fear positively impacts the whole situation is where the businessmen to avoid the dangerously lurking economic crisis strenuously work hard and relentlessly cling to their uncompromising motives. In the process they prove their valor by bypassing the obstacles that fear puts in their way.
As conquerors of misfortunes, they proclaim victory. Thus, they fight back any situation that they think will throw them back to their previous state of poverty. At the same time, they abhor losing the high social status theythrough justified means; whole lots of clandestine criminal maneuvers go into it.
Fear as much as it has greatly contributed to their success as a positive impact, the involvement of the businessman in the legally, socially and morally unaccepted activities to amass wealth is its unforgivable aspect.
For the individual involved in the venture, in spite of anything, it catapults him to a higher unexpected economic status in a very short time. Sometimes it appears to be an over-nightly developed phenomenon that transcends human understanding.
If a person, who is known for commuting by bus or train every day , one fine morning, is seen driving a very expensive vehicle, it is rather hard to believe that it is gained through normal business endeavors. Man, in his eagerness to accumulate wealth, designs whichever means he thinks is viable to achieve success.
Thus, an employee of a certain firm, for fear of losing the irreplaceable opportunity offered by his post, indulges himself into the business of conflict of interest/ using the time, facilities and money, altogether, the property of the firm for his personal interest. Such is the temptation behind which the fear of forfeiting a profitable chance entices a vulnerable soul; it is a kind of bait leading him to his doom.
Fear, as domain-specific reality, commands an individual’s life philosophy. The imagination and thought of mortality as opposed to immortality constantly worries man until he finally reclines in either one or the other. Such is human’s domain specific and non-ending occupation, the inescapable fate.
The world we live in has always been in turmoil ever since coming into existence. The war lords in their insatiable desire of dominating everything including their subjects and the land around them, and this situation in turn, throws the inhabitants therein into constant fear and bondage.
The fear of being overtaken by others in the race, deprives the superpower s them of their sovereignty and influence. Lately, many countries, which were not involved in the arms race a little over a couple of decades ago, are strongly voicing their demand to be placed among the super powers. All of them complain that they are denied their rights to proceed with the arms building and thus have turned deaf ears to the international condemnation.
The situation has become a bottleneck experience to the peace-seeking countries. For agreements to be reached between countries of opposing political and economic views for which various systems are devised almost all have been proven unsuccessful.
Whichever system succeeded, has rather been dependent on arms presence in sight by all the opposing parties at close range. Political talks and debates seem to be at the gun barrel; logic is systematically and gradually pushed out of the way.
To crown it all, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, is what we all should pay heed to. The commandments of the Lord mean nothing other than love for the creator and fellow humans. In this situation, there is no fear of any kind; love sets a barrier to all bad deeds, be it in religious, political or economic spheres. Therefore, there is no trespassing, no invasion and no robbery of any kind.
The golden rule, ‘don’t do to others what you don’t want to be done unto you’ governs the whole situation. As a matter of fact, in areas where love is upheld, fear cannot find a haven where it can insinuate evil deeds to harm. Sharp pains caused by the stings of fear are no more and no longer harmful when love prevails. The golden rule, imbued with love, spans generations if genuinely applied.
Essentially, if fear, like a rocket used to give initial speed to a missile, it helps us to succeed; it is friendly, otherwise, if it becomes a cause for failure, it is our enemy. The root cause of all these boils down to the uncertainty about what tomorrow will come up with.
Let peace be on the fear-free earth!!!
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition 1 September 2019
BY JOSEPH SOBOKA
