fear (orig. Jan 16, 2013)

I am generally anxious person, a worrywart of sorts. I follow most rules and get nervous when I don't, and I am often concerned about how others might perceive me and think a lot about the implications of my behavior or my decisions, often to a fault.

My thinking of late has made me consider deeply this notion of fear, fear as a driver of action.

My conclusion is as follows:
Fear cannot drive us. Actions and decisions coming from places of deep-seeded, irrational, or uninformed fear lead only to bad things.

I ask you to consider the following events and pieces of information. All things discussed or things that occurred in what I feel is quite recent:

• The death of Aaron Swartz, computing genius and internet freedom activist. With the charges filed against him and the massive sentence that awaited, he was pushed to take his own life. It is out of fear of Aaron's message about free sharing of information and knowledge, a misguided and disproportionate fear for the implications of his movement on intellectual property, and a fear of losing control and reach in this "white collar crime" space that it seems that the judicial officials in question
• The killing of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year old African American boy. An innocent, unarmed teenager was killedfrom fear of a stereotype, fears based on lies and suspicions that draw from a history of racism and criminalization of an entire subgroup of the American population. 
• The gang-rapes of women in India. The subjugation and violent and ruthless attacks on women in India, which sadly also happen all around the world on a daily basis, stem often from a place of fear of losing control, a fear of feeling weak or emasculated. 

We cannot operate on fear, swinging wildly from one disproportionate reaction to an extreme solution, from a bulging funhouse-mirror reflection of an interpretation of a situation or another person to an oversimplified blanket response that leads to nothing but further confusion, further pain, further insecurity, and more destruction.

Instead, a quest for truth, a search for clarity. A desire to understand and an intent to listen. We cannot operate on fear.

I am having difficulty being as eloquent as I would like, so I will leave some quotes about fear to close this entry.

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeeed." - Albert Einstein

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." - Nelson Mandela

"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson

"When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth - then all Americans are in peril." - Harry S. Truman