Resist culture of fear
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Editor,
Fear is the most deadly of emotions. And it is not limited to any particular group, ideology, political party, religious organization or specialized movement. It is an insidious emotion that resides in each of us just waiting to take over our conscious thoughts, words, and actions.
Take our present national condition and our political situations as the perfect example. And pointing the finger at the Ann Coulters, Donald Trumps, Glen Becks or Rush Limbaughs of the world and blaming them is not the answer. Quieting them down will not stop the epidemic of fear. These folks are simply answering the call so many of us have for hearing and lapping up 'the worst of the worst', and believing it because it triggers our own 'fear emotion' just waiting to be stoked, stroked, and brought alive within us.
We are so ready to listen to snippets of half-truths or outright lies, believing them and then judging, castigating and criticizing the whole based on little evidence of the truth. Our 'fear emotion' has been well honed since childhood, for sure.
It is my firm belief that we each have within us the capacity to very effectively resist this sudden urge to buy into the fear mongering of epidemic proportions in our nation and world today. And not only do I firmly believe that we have that capacity, but I firmly believe that to survive as a species, we must change the course of our inner responses to what we are being fed by those preying upon us with this most destructive of emotions: fear.
It takes patience. It takes a willingness to seek for truth. It takes an immediate awareness to when our fear emotion is being triggered, looking at it squarely and asking ourselves if this is really what we want to think right now. It takes the ability to turn on our 'trust and reason emotion' which emanates from the goodness and wisdom which resides in each of us but which so often gets covered over and overwhelmed by that most insidious and powerful fear emotion.
It can be done. It is done by many. It, to my way of thinking, is the hope of humanity.
Bob McClellan
Polson
