Truth and Meaning: What Are You Afraid Of?

Every day is a precious gift. Every person in our lives offers something of value, something to be cherished. We all have energy and abilities to help others, to make our world better.

And yet, we waste so much time, energy and potential on the negative things in life. We are obsessed with fear. We bathe ourselves in anxiety. We dwell in bubbles of doubt, breathing in the noxious fumes that only increase our unease. Even when our horizons are clear, we find a way to steer toward dismal thoughts and circumstances, as if the presence of fear somehow validates us.

Why do we allow ourselves to believe that being fearful resides in our nature as human beings? The answer is simple. Every day we are bombarded with messages through endless media of threats. Some of these threats — such as global warming — are very real. Others are manufactured notions put forth by hatemongers and radical regressives whose only goal is to scare you into thoughtless action.

And you should be scared. You should be scared that these lunatics might actually influence people; that they might convince weak-minded people to commit unspeakable acts.

You should be scared of people like Kevin Swanson, the Colorado pastor who hosted a so-called religious liberties conference in Iowa recently, attended by three current candidates for president. Among other unfathomable positions, Swanson is publicly on record frequently advocating for gay people to receive the death penalty. Yes, you read this correctly. This man actually believes that all gay people should be rounded up and executed.

Even scarier is that Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal and Mike Huckabee shared the stage with this bigot in a question and answer session. By attending and participating in this event, these men have at least indirectly condoned the ravings of man who advocates for our nation to execute millions of people for the crime of being born homosexual.

Now, we can possibly dismiss Jindal and Huckabee as unelectable candidates since they consistently elicit negligible polling numbers. But Ted Cruz is somehow a viable candidate for the Republican nomination for president. And amazingly, he is running behind one man who claims that Joseph built the pyramids in Egypt to store grain and another who blithely dismisses whole peoples as murderers and rapists.

So when you listen to the news, don't let commentators tell you what to fear. Use your own powers of reason and look for the real threats to our lives and well-being. Fear is not a natural state for humanity. Fear is a weapon used by those seeking power over you by creating phantom enemies for you to hate.