Being a child of the eighties I lived and dreamed fear. It began at the tail end of the cold war. With the stench of fear still wafting strong through society, I remember fondly, my mother telling me at the young age of seven about the expected aftereffects of a nuclear winter.
"Now Madd, remember, your hair will fall out, your skin will go limp and lifeless, and at the end of it all you will probably resemble something found on the Queen West sidewalk." I nodded at the appropriate places as she continued, "and this is why, if the missiles do launch, I will take care of you and Chris with a lovely little pill." Later I discovered that she was referring to cyanide tablets, but I refused to take my Flintstones vitamins just in case
Feeling guilty, as any good Protestant should, I used to cap off all my evening prayers to the big guy in the sky with, "and please do not let the family become a rabble of horribly disfigured mutants as a result of nuclear winter." But as all things do, the chilling fire of a possible nuclear winter fizzled out shortly after the cold war was called off.
Sleep suddenly came too easily after this.
My prayers ended with less concern.
I noticed a large gap in the existence of my ten year old life.
Fear was missing, until our family began watching Unsolved Mysteries, cloaked in the perpetual possibility of kidnappers, serial killers, and other "evil doers" lurking near my bedside window, my prayers could once again be properly scripted. The looming possibility of my gruesome demise made my life feel slightly more real and tangible.
Unfortunately, after Oliver Stone glorified murder with his cult classic Natural Born Killers even a bloody demise at the hands of a social path lost its edge.
For my high school career I grasped at possible solutions to fill this void of fear in my life, getting poor grades and becoming a homeless bum was easily forgotten about after I discovered drinking. There was a brief battle with the fear of dying at the hands of marijuana addiction; however, everyone laughed at me when I expressed it. My life begun spiraling out of control as I attempted to fulfill my bizarre addiction to fear, paranoia took over my purposes and thoughts as I stumbled around searching for new fear.
It wasn't until shortly after high school, when I was employed by my first marketing firm, that I was educated on why and how the media manipulates society with the potential of fear. The companies used to cart us into these huge hotel conference rooms and pump us full of caffeine and sugar, then begin a series of propaganda techniques that we were to in turn pass onto you, the general public. After Iams pet food was bought by the corporate monster Proctor and Gamble, they brought us together, filled our heads with beneficial knowledge on their products and sent us out to "re-educate" the public.
This was when they taught me that the most two driving emotions to control someone's life was love and fear, "you want someone to do exactly as you wish? Ask them if they love their (insert who the product is necessary for here). When they respond with yes, as every self concerning human should, tell them that their loved one may die if they don't buy what you are selling." Double wammey, sell love and fear in the same sentence and you can get people to fork out any limits of cash.
Precisely at this point that empty void in my life, that was originally filled by fear, became clearly defined by this statement of manipulation. Society became a construction of puppet strings, perpetually pulled for the purposes of economy and complacency. What's more, I became aware of my would be captors and their use of manipulation to cage my desires and my actions, and once this illusion was illuminated, I realized that the bars of my own creation were never there in the first place.
Fear is a ravenous and gluttonous beast, one that must be fed personally in order to sustain its growth. All the idle talk concerning swine flu will create a collection of cages to bind and blind anyone willing to descend into the desires of drama. This is not to say that the swine flu may not be potentially dangerous, nor is it to suggest that ignoring it will be the vaccine that Tamiflu cannot aspire towards; bullets and cars will still kill even if ignored.
Fear and love both must be accepted with the same level of awareness if the illusion is to be seen and the cages are to disappear. To transcend that which cannot be accepted, one must cast a light of truth to dispel an illusion. The fear will still be tangible, but it's illusionary nature will never be forgotten.
As an attempt to cast some light onto pig's blowing hot air at a fragile construction of hay, I leave you with this: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/29/Swine-Flu.aspx
Carpe Stuff.
-Hattere