Fear sits at the root of our existence; feeding from it as the trees of the forest feed from a rich soil. That is why we depend so much upon our fear. We know it feeds us richly. Yet what we often do not know is that it need not feed us. There is a less rich soil which ultimately leaves us better fed and less bilious.

Fear keeps us blind to this alternative source of sustenance. Even the seemingly alternative-seeking individual among us, or society itself, is often seeking no more than a variated fear; a fear such as a new enemy or a new illness with which to be concerned about; an alternative anxiety if you will. Few indeed are those who replant their roots in new, different soil.

Often this is because we fear a reality in which we are no longer in control; no longer in possession of some position of power or some source of power.  Fear facilitates both position and source, just as a lever facilitates the moving of a rock. That is why many of us fight to keep it as our preferred nutrient.  We shy away from other positions and nutrients because we want to stay as we are and this includes feeding from what has brought us here; fear.

It is not uncommon to see a leader or mentor fight to remain as leader /mentor long after their leadership/mentoring skills have been surpassed by those they lead and mentored. They work from the fear-founded premise that without their leadership and mentoring, chaos will ensue; destruction of the institution will follow. Ironically, it is these surpassed leaders/mentors that collapse institutions far more frequently than those who take reality into account. They fuel the process of rusting and demolition with their corrosive energy.

The reality-accounters on the other hand see their own surpassing and recognise they have been overtaken by the generation who once followed and imitated them. They do not rile or rail against their surpassing, they merely pass the baton on and remain to offer their experience; hoping, if not praying, that those who are overtaking them feed from a different nutrient than fear; as they now do.

And what is this alternative nutrient; this fear-free sustenance? It is whatever is left within the remains of those who have stood in the theatre of war in which their own fear fought reality itself. Often they have committed criminal acts, inhuman acts and barbaric acts. Sometimes they have felled their own fellow trees; their brothers and sisters. But as reality (nature’s very own Sun-Tzu) steadily triumphs; they shrink to meagre beings, thankful for what remains; for what remains is all they have. And when wars end all that remains is awareness; the awareness that holding on, struggling for position, predicting catastrophe; is the strategy of the fear-feeding child.

This is the alternative nutrient of which I speak; the nutrient of the awareness of reality’s rule. It will fell fear every time.