Fears… the Currency of Ego

We’ve talked about how Love is not an emotion, it is a decision, a truth which transcends emotions. But what are emotions, and where do they come from. In fact, it is exactly that, “where they come from”, which defines them.

Fear is the source of all things born of want and self indulgence, such are emotions, the currency of Ego. Fears/ Emotions are not the children of reason, they are that which distracts us from reason… flooding our bodies with endorphins, drugging us, and activating our amygdala (fear response/ pleasure). So I will demonstrate their true nature by exposing some of our more obvious, and even desirable, ones. Starting with the so called positive emotions.

Let’s begin with the big one, love as it is seen through the filter of romance. This carnal, provocative, passionate, obsessive, excessive, and sometimes violent emotions is based in one of our most primal fears. It is Fear of loneliness and abandonment which drives us to desire security in the company of others, to need to possess them, to wish to be loved by them. It is in our desire to be accepted by others that we seek out those who must accept us, that we lay claim to one another, and seek to leverage emotions to create obligatory bonds. But if we loved without Fear, we would not feel a need to possess others, to be reassured that our love was returned, or to be comforted by the false security implied by these conditioned relationships and delusions of obligation. We would Love only for the sake of Love, without expectation or self interest.

Let’s move on to Compassion, as in the desire to help those in need out of a sense of sympathy, or perhaps we should say empathy. Because that sick feeling you feel when you see others suffering is just that, empathy, the ability to imagine yourself suffering under similar circumstances. A feeling which presents ever more strongly the more you can relate to the person in question. Whether this is due to something as simple as commonality of appearance, race, gender, age, or something more personal or practical such as having shared similar struggles. Compassion is born of the Fear of being ignored, an uncertainty about whether anyone would be there to reach out to you in your time of need, should it ever come. But if we were simply to desire a better world, we would execute reason to fulfill the same ends with little to no attachment to our good deeds or expectation of potential return. Because it is reasonable to treat others as we wish to be treated in any given situation, whether or not we believe that we would ever be so disposed, if only to create a world which meets our standards of decency.

I won’t make this too long so lets touch on a less desirable emotion. Hatred, the Fear of being displaced, of feeling threatened. Of course this one is complex, as it can also be the Fear that someone has gotten away with something that has had a personal cost on you, though this feeling is more accurately vengeance until it is passed on to the younger generations. It is in fact this inheritance of similar emotions which muddies the waters so, until hatred has become an ambiguous Fear that something threatens to undermine or destroy your way of life. This inherited Fear, bordering on paranoia, representing systemic Hatred which masquerades as superiority and entitlement. While one who does not feel Fear has no reason to Hate, even those things which they rationally must be cautious of, or the things they have come to dislike from experience. The rational mind chooses instead to understand, take precautions, and simply avoid engagements with those things they have discovered to be dangerous. We do not seek to eradicate snakes and spiders and every potentially poisonous creature from the face of the Earth No, we instead have learned to respect the danger they pose and take proper precaution when wandering into their domains, if not avoid them altogether.

So I say to you, emotions are but fears all grown up and given names… power over our hearts and minds. So, conquer them with reason and mindfulness. Rely instead on understanding and decisiveness. Do not indulge the self its lies and impulses, its survivors instincts. These things are but mirages of understanding, empty of substance and fleeting of meaning, no longer needed by the rational mind. They are at best distractions, and at worst wrong turns and dead ends. Treat your emotions like what they are, novelties for minds starved for purpose and meaning… sweet delusions designed to lead you into the depths of self indulgence and fearful obedience, a weakness to be taken advantage of by others… and by that daemon which sleeps within you. Free yourself from the chains that bind you to an imperfect existence, and act without giving in to that which renders you a helpless child or an eternal victim. Free yourself to chose the path before you.

Life Hacked…