Fear and Loathing | Draft
While listening to the lyrics of a particular song today I couldn’t let loose of this one line…’fear is the heart of love’, which, to me, seems to be the premise of most, if not all reigning religions. War, which is predicated on the perpetuation of religious paradigms (if we agree that capitalism, rife with rites and rituals, and certainly sacrifice, is a religion unto itself) has left mankind with little to fear. Simply speaking, the worst has already occurred, and fear no-longer comes from without – it originates from within. In fact, if you ask me, that’s how the construction of the God concept came into creation/existence in the first place.
Humankind’s most haunting and harrowing nightmares have been playing out in war’s theater for centuries. Tyranny, brutality, and naked aggression (under the guise of diplomacy) have become boring war cries of cliche; commonplace concepts used as cannon fodder in media and motion picture. We not only accept it and surrender to it, we expect it and yawn in its myriad of painted and decorated faces. What happens when we’ve become inured to violence, apathetic and divested of sexual desire; fearless beings besieged by anomie?
What will motivate us when the dark, macabre and taboo have been co-opted by every sitcom and Sunday advertisement? We live in a world, in a time where nothing shocks or induces fear (aside from visible signs of aging, obesity, and monetary loss). My belief is that nothing should shock, except the realization that we’ve committed our lives to the construction and perpetuation of lies. Lies that have lost their charms and powers of persuasion, for me at least. So, if fear is truly the heart of love, then oblivion is the heart of happiness and I am in retirement from both.
