Fear Is A Virus

Hello Tribe,

If you take this post from a few years ago and substitute Corona virus for Jihad, the message is the same! My god, unless you’re living under a rock, the media has us going!

“The world is such a dangerous place!” they’d have us think. Uh, no. To put this in perspective, there have been around 3000 deaths worldwide, and with a population of over 7.5 BILLION—the odds of you dying from this is pretty darn low.

I mean, be smart, be diligent, wash your hands for 30 seconds and try not to touch your face but otherwise, don’t sacrifice yourself to the side effects of mass hysteria. Live that wild life of yours as best you can while this plays itself out and please, try not to catch the fear.

xox

Hello, fear. (Said with sneering disdain, like “Hello Newman” on Seinfeld).

Fear reared his ugly head again on Tuesday.
Like me, you probably woke up to the report of yet another terrorist attack on innocent civilians in Brussels. And again if you’re like me your first response was to gird your loins.

To hunker down, plant your feet, cross your arms, and label the world a dangerous place.

And along with me you probably felt a nauseous gut pit, which turned into sadness, then empathy and finally anger. Oh, yeah, and all of that with a fear chaser.

But you guys, it reminds me of those pharmaceutical ads on TV and their heinous side effects. You know the ones I mean. They’re laughable.

“For chronic chapped lips try *Chaplipocine. Taken regularly, it reduces the symptoms of chapped lips in only three days!
Side effects may include (and this is said at the speed of a professional auctioneer), flatulence, headaches, amnesia, seizures, constipation, swelling of the tongue and testicles, facial hair in women and babies, eventual loss of consciousness — and death.”

And it’s making billions because people are willing to suffer those consequences to get chapped lip relief!
Wtf?

But just as ridiculous and shoved down our throats even more aggressively, are the side effects of fear. They consist of paranoia, anxiety, uncontrollable security cravings, unwillingness to travel, suspicion, inability to turn off CNN, intolerance, giving away your privacy, dis-empowerment, not living your life — and death.

Seriously?

I for one, feel that’s unacceptable.

We all have a choice of how to respond.
I can eyeball the hipster next to me suspiciously while he sits there on his computer with his luxurious man-beard, and wonder if he’s crafting his jihadist manifesto (or if he coughed).  And I can cancel my trip to Europe that I saved years for.
Because I could die. We could ALL die.
Because it’s all too dangerous. The airports. Subways. Cafes. Sidewalks. Everything.

These are some of the side effects I’m not willing to suffer. How about you?

Listen, we have to be aware. We can’t and we shouldn’t walk with our faces buried in our phones or our head in the clouds. But there’s a difference between awareness and suspicion.

Don’t shake hands with fear. Please.(Or anybody right now for that matter.)

Girded loins never did anyone any good,

And chapped lips go away in three days regardless of the medicine you take.

So don’t endure the heinous side effects just for the illusion of being saved.

Anyhow, carry on,

xox

*you know this product doesn’t really exist, right?