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MAN AND FEAR

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Hey, guys. I hope you're having a productive morning. Things at Steem have been tough these last few days. There is some apprehension and fear for the cryptographic movements that have been deteriorating wallets and economies. But fear is normal in human beings, it is one of those sensations that are with us from birth to death.

French writer and philosopher, Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, said: "There is no thing of which I am as afraid as of fear". Fear can not only paralyse a human being, it can also drive him to do things he would not do in normal situations. Some things can provoke individual fears, others global fears. In this case, we can say that there are many works of art dedicated to this natural emotion in any species and that it develops or loses in us as we grow.

Sometimes life beats us and frightens us mercilessly and puts us to the test with the worst that it has in store for us, but the idea is not to be cowardly, but to know that we are human and therefore there are things that surpass us such as that sensation of dread or shock. Today I would like to share with you some poems that talk about fear, to understand that many of these fears are the same and can be felt at any time.

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Let's begin our tour with one of the most outstanding writers of Latin American literature, the Uruguayan writer and journalist Eduardo Galeano:

We inhabit a world ruled by fear, fear rules, power eats fear, what would power be without fear? Without the fear that power itself generates to perpetuate itself.
Hunger has fear for breakfast.
The fear of silence that stuns the streets.
Fear threatens.
If you love you will have AIDS.
If you smoke you will have cancer.
If you breathe you will have pollution.
If you drink you will have accidents.
If you eat you will have cholesterol.
If you talk, you will have unemployment.
If you walk you will have violence.
If you think you will have anguish.
If you are in doubt, you will have insanity.
If you feel you will have loneliness...

In this poem we see fear as a disease or pandemic that contaminates everything: surrounded and without exits, human beings cannot escape from fear. Life produces fear and there are many governments that generate it and use it to survive. There are also parents, societies that fear with their concepts, with their theories of what it should be to live: and do not get wet in the rain because you will catch a cold, and do not laugh too much because you will get wrinkles, and do not look so much at the stars because you can fall. Fear is the weapon of those who kill or die slowly: suicide. And the irony is there: living becomes fear, and we don't love for fear of suffering, we don't procreate for fear of not taking care of our children, we don't kiss or embrace for fear of showing our feelings, we live in a panic of dying and without realizing it, life is a great fear. Although fear is experienced by man as well as by animals, the animal does not anticipate death, the human being does; he is aware of his propi to death.

As I said in previous paragraphs, fear is a state that can induce you to react in a certain way and even help you get certain opportunities that brings action, but normal is to be paralyzed, hypnotized, you feel the tension before the threat. The Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, has a poem that captures that feeling of intimidation:

I'm afraid -And I feel so he tired and small
that I reflect the evening without meditating on it.
(In my sick head there is no room for a dream
just as there was no room in the sky for a star.)

In this stanza you can see how the lyrical voice speaks of its dwarfed and nervous state in the face of fear. The man can feel that there is emptiness in his soul, a deep hole that hurts, that is made at each bigger hour. Empty inside him and empty outside, the only thing that beats and lurks is fear: a thousand fangs animal that bites insensitively.

In ancient times, most likely, man had to face permanent dangers from the threats of some predators, the lack of protection, the danger of looking for food. Many of these fears were associated with nature, with the spaces in which they lived. The fears of the human beings of those times do not differ much from those that affect the contemporary man, they live the same insecurities and uncertainties, only more updated. In this regard, the American writer Raymond Carver lets us know in his poem called FEAR:

Fear of seeing a police patrol stop in front of the house.
Fear of the telephone ringing in the silence of the dead night.
Fear of dogs even if they tell me they don't bite.
Fear of anxiety!
Fear of having to identify the body of a dead friend.
Fear of running out of money.

As I mentioned, fears are updated. It is no longer fear of animals but of other men who also harm and kill, of technologies that speak of tragedies and are modern bad omen birds, having money and not because we know the big difference. Today there is fear for the immigrant, for the black man, for the one who keeps it in the corners. For today's man it is a risk to live with others, we are infected with their customs and thoughts, so we live locked with doors and a thousand keys that do not allow the entry of any intruder.

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Hence we find an extremely fearful human being, full of phobias, who asks for clemency in the face of fear. The Argentine poet, Marilina Rébora, leaves us a poem that speaks of this:

I'm afraid, sir, but not at night,
nor the shadow, least of all the darkness;
it is fear of the dawn shining waste
as fear of the world, when the world is populated.
I'm afraid, sir, not because I'm alone.
or sad isolation or secluded retirement,
I'm afraid of people, of the imposing wave,
the sway of beings in asphyxiating twist.
I'm afraid, sir, to face life
with so many demands, commitments, duties

Contemporary societies also frighten the life in many of them. The accelerated movement of people, vehicular congestion, the permanent transformation of the immediate environment, stress. We can feel overwhelmed before the big skyscrapers, the planes, the amount of lights that can leave us blind. This is how today's society generates fear.

To close this post, I would like to transcribe a text by Galeano and share it with you. The text is entitled The Art of Sending

An emperor of China, not knowing his name or his dynasty or his time, called his chief adviser one night and confided to him the anguish that prevented him from sleeping. He said, "No one fears me. Since no one feared him, no one respected him. And since no one respected him, no one obeyed him. The chief counselor meditated for a while and said, "There is no punishment. And the surprised emperor said that punishment was not lacking, because he sent to the gallows anyone who did not bow to his step. And the chief adviser warned him: "But those are the culprits. If only the guilty are punished, only the guilty feel fear. The Chinese emperor thought and thought... and came to the conclusion that the chief adviser was right. And he had his head cut off. The execution took place in a large public square, the heavenly square, the main square of the empire. And the counselor was the first in a long list.

What would politics and power do if they didn't play with fear? Also some economies and cryptographies. Remember: fear can immobilize you, but it can also make you take great risks.

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I hope today's fear is fleeting. I also hope that you can join our server in discord and not be afraid to vote for @adsactly as witnesses. Until a next smile. ;)

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Galeano
https://blogs.20minutos.es/poesia/2009/03/13/miedo-raymond-carver/
https://www.poemas-del-alma.com/pablo-neruda-tengo-miedo.htm
https://www.buscapalabra.com/poemas.html?palabras=miedo&cortos=no

WRITTEN BY @nancybriti

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