I saw something on Facebook a little bit ago. It was a good-hearted message about fighting hate with hate and anger with anger. It was a message with a good heart behind it, but it was a wrong message.
America is divided. Some people will tell you it is divided by race. Some will tell you it is divided by religion. Some will tell you it is divided by money. Those people are right, but only partially.
These are all symptoms of a greater problem. They are all pieces of the one thing that really divides humanity.
Fear.
We are all afraid. We’re always afraid. So afraid we can’t stand it anymore. So afraid we’ve grown fatigued.
And that fatigue makes us easy to control. It makes us easy to manipulate. It makes us weak.
Because our fear doesn’t have a face. Our fear doesn’t have a name. Our fear is a vague, shadowy figure our leaders can warp and twist into whatever monster they want it to be.
That’s how they control us. That’s how the keep us divided. They twist our fears to be the monster they want us to believe they can defend us against.
But, they can’t. They can’t because not only is it a lie, they don’t want you to stop being afraid.
If you were every happy, they wouldn’t be able to control you anymore.
They don’t want that.
They want you afraid.
They want you angry.
They want you divided.
They want to be able to control you.
But, you shouldn’t let them.
We are divided by our fear.
We are controlled by it.
Because our fear doesn’t have a face.
Our fear doesn’t have a name.
Our fear is vague and shadowy.
And, all we need to do now is shine a light.
Identify our fears as what they really are. Show ourselves the truth. Face them head-on.
Because, when we know what we are really afraid of… When we define our fears before someone else is able to manipulate them… When we face our real problems in search of real solutions…
We can no longer be controlled.
And that is what they are afraid of.