Fear, hope, and reaction.

Fear, hope, and reaction.
Fear is an emotion that is physically changing functions in the body and taking over the mind. I think it is a feeling that we may be harmed, perhaps seriously, but we can’t do much about it. The first time that I can remember being struck with fear happened on the farm in my pre-school days.
We lived on the farm, and it was summer. The window was open and louvered shutters were closed. I was in my bed and could see light reflecting on the wall from the kerosene lamp in the kitchen where my parents were. Outside I could hear the jackals (wild dogs like coyotes) howling at a distance. The most powerful animals in our environment were the hyenas. They are similar to a big dog and make a distinctive sound that is like a crazy man laughing hysterically. Scientists believe that the sound paralyzes nerves.
One of these beasts somehow got close to my window and howled/laughed, leaving me frozen with fear. Immediately I heard my dad opening the closet where he kept a shotgun. I heard it click and the front door squeaked and slammed shut. In seconds there was the flash and a shell exploded followed by some crunching of his feet on the gravel followed by another shot and the night was silent more than ever.  Young me had been introduced to one major human emotion called fear.
There were many more brushes with fear in my life. I learned that we can ignore fear, inflict it upon others, and use it to control humans and even animals. It is not always rational yet very powerful. Often fear is connected to our imagination. We imagine a scenario that may happen and compute the probability of its materializing. In other cases, we are just paralyzed with fear yet unable to explain it.
Fear is contagious and can easily infect enormous groups of people. I, for example, have a fear of communicable diseases. I never had one worse than the flu but I have seen movies of great plagues and I will go through great trouble to try to avoid being infected.  I remember in my childhood when so many kids were inflicted with Polio. I had a friend in school who lost the use of his legs. I know that invisible little critters can do a lot of harm to us, the almighty humans. My imagination makes fear mightier. I assume that a virus with the ability to mutate and quickly reproduce could destroy all humans.
My other great fear is that humans will destroy themselves. My parents, and all the people I knew as a child, were refugees from Europe. They survived since they were smart or lucky enough to escape the two greatest enemies that threatened humanity, both ideologies. My parents escaped both Fascism and Communism and I fear both.
I know that to avoid the two most dreadful ideologies we must keep a healthy balance. People must have a reasonable way to stay alive, be safe, and raise children while also taking care of the old. Without that, we will abandon our love of life and head towards extinction. The opposing emotion to fear is hope.
The survivors of the great war, who raised me, all had hope in common. They faced the armies of both Hitler and Stalin. Most have been in concentration camps or war prisoners’ facilities, yet they always had an escape plan or devised possible scenarios of coming out alive. They all knew instinctively that the way to beat fear is by fighting. It is the nature of humans. The other most important ingredient is sticking together. You can’t win alone but sure can in numbers.
Last week I watched with horror the President next door, acting seemingly without understanding the basics of human nature. His own people came in great numbers to make him aware of a huge social problem in his country. Discrimination against poor people, mostly visible minorities. As always, some hotheads acted criminally, but most were doing what they should, letting the government know that a change must happen.
The President first displayed fear and later came brandishing weapons, gassing and attacking. The government is a tool of the people designed to organize action that the people want. This time the President did the opposite of what is logical. He threatened to use the defense force to subdue the people. Does he not know that the army is made of people from his country?
The ruling class of the greatest country, which I admired all my life, has just deteriorated a great deal. I have friends in the US whom I care a lot about. There are Americans who live here and they are good people. Now I am helplessly watching as steps are being taken towards what could develop into a civil war. I have seen it before in other places and studied it in school. How can anyone risk taking all those wonderful people towards such a significant danger? I feel fear creeping into my bones.
I am witnessing a possible breakdown of all that I believed could not break down.  We humans reached a new point in which we demand action and improvement. We are fighting for the environment, for life on the planet, for an end to systemic discrimination, and for an economy that will sustain us instead of build empires.
With information breaking through, no longer dependent upon the official media, our dreams and hopes are now attainable. In comes, the “old guard” threatening to rule by fear and force. Consequently, we see millions of people demonstrating all over the world. The “old guard” are trying to use their laws and our armies to subdue the popular movements, but it will not happen.
Calling the armies at this point will only bring war and violent revolutions. I pray that peace and love will win the day as was predicted in the bible that Trump was holding upside down in front of the White House.

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