Do you need fear?

There's a movie called "Esoteric Agenda" making the rounds. I actually watched the full 126 minutes this movie lasts, and it is, in my opinion, a shining example of how erroneously we can connect the dots and see patterns where there are none, inventing monsters under the bed with no other evidence than an absence of light there. I'm basically saying, don't watch it.

So why am I even mentioning this? Because the movie, though it has a feel-good "love is the answer" ending, spends an hour and 45 minutes trying to convince you that "they" are out to get you. No, really. Using the end of the Mayan calendar, some dubious explanations for the word Israel and an even more dubious correlation drawn between paganism and socialism, with the Bush family geneology thrown in - just for starters! - the movie tries to convince the viewer that there is a plot to rid the planet of 5.95 billion of its 6 billion humans. Somebody wants you to starve to death, or contract a curable disease but get no medicine, or be the victim of yet another senseless war, says the movie.

I actually enjoy Eric von Däniken's far-out ideas. I find some conspiracy theories so fascinating that I wish they were true (like the one the Da Vinci code is based on, or any of the Indiana Jones movies).

This movie does not present any facts. It presents theories that can not be independently verified and offers connections between events or people that don't exist. It rehashes urban myths and New Age wishful thinking (like the 100th monkey story). However, it's one thing to fantasize about where the ark of the covenant ended up; it's something else entirely to weave a story with the intention of frightening people.

And that is my concern. There are plenty of things to be afraid of, from Moslem terrorists to gene manipulated food to the current economic situation in the US.

All of this the movie grabs onto, and for the claimed 87 per cent of the population who do not think for themselves this can lead to an even greater distrust of governments, of the decision-making process both personal, national and global, and of the world at large itself.

It makes me wonder what the purpose is.

If life is resilient, if the only constant is change, and we have survived any matter of problems over the millennia, if the nature of God is inherently good and One, why be afraid?

What purpose does fear have?

I can see only one: To tell you to rethink a situation.

But how much fear is necessary to reevaluate a situation, to reconsider a possible danger? And is fear necessary at all to make decisions about which politician to vote for or whether or not children in a foreign country should be given free food?

Can any message of unity, of a universal oneness, be "sold" without the use of scare tactics?

I believe so, but I also understand that we do tend to believe the statistics, and worry, and remind ourselves (partly thanks to our own history books) that bad things do happen.

But they don't happen all that much. The majority of what we experience is generally not bad.

So I ask you: Do you need fear? Do you need fear in order make positive changes in your life? Do you need fear to care about your health? Do you need fear in order to believe in God? Do you need fear to take action to improve your community? Do you vote for the politician who gets your attention by scaring you? Do you stay in a job or a marriage because it scares you not to? Are your decisions in life made to lessen your fears?

Try this instead: Ask yourself, what would love do? Ask yourself if you loved yourself, or your neighbor or town or country, what would you do?

Try seeing the world as a safe place, only waiting for improvement, not a dangerous place, only waiting for some way to fight back.

How do these thoughts make you feel?

How does the idea of being able to act in and on the world from a feeling of love and safety make you feel about being here on Earth?

I'm sure it makes you feel better than thinking about what scares you.

The point that even "Esoteric Agenda" makes is that you always have choice: Love or fear. Which do you choose to habitually hold in your mind? Fear makes you give away your power; love helps you find it. If you to have real choice, to have real freedom, to have real self-empowerment, love is the key. Focusing on the one thing that always supports life is the best way to address confusion and fear. Love is the answer.

Links:
Slade's review
Sravana's review