A fan of the Yankees, Red Sox, and large sample sizes.

 
FEAR

If you've ever seen Bowling for Columbine by Roger Moore, you've heard how much fear dominates American society - media, advertising, everything. Fear of disease, fear of impotence, fear of lacking retirement funds, fear of growing old alone, fear of terrorism, fear of crazy foreign countries, hell even fear of fear, right FDR? I was stunned the first time I watched that film, because it was so true, yet I'd never realized it before. Since then, every time I've noticed excessive use of fear in American society, I've chuckled to myself and made a note of how sad it is. There's no reason for this excessive fear. With so much of it, it's hard for people to make decisions outside of the status quo. We know the way things are is ok, so why take the risk that another way will also be ok? Why order the tuna when you know the snapper's pretty good? We fear the unknown because we're being bombarded with so many things to be fearful of. Personally, I'm sick of it. Fear prevents original thinking. Fear prevents advancement of society. So many of my high school students, who should be the second most open-minded demographic next to college students, are anti-gay, are xeno-phobic, and are anti-try anything new.

So, I've decided to blog all the little instances of the use of fear that are just really stupid. Just because someone uses fear as motivation doesn't make the cause bad, it's just that they should find a more productive and respectable way of promoting their cause.

First on my list is the preface of the book I bought this morning, "Enter The Zone." One of my goals this year is to eat healthier - not because I fear being overweight or dying form a heart attack soon, but because eating right can give you more energy and a higher motivation to gets things done that you really want to do. Diets are stupid, because eventually you need to find an eating plan for after the diet, and if it's healthy enough for the rest of your life, you might as well just start on it now and skip the fad diet all-together. Not that the Zone is the perfect plan, but it contains solid ideas.

Anyways, the preface starts out, "A sword of Damocles hangs over my head, something I've known since my early twenties. You see, I'm a walking genetic time bomb. I'm genetically programmed by nature to die of heart disease within the next ten years. My early death seems all but inevitable..."

Uh, yeah, let me paraphrase. "Do the Zone, or you'll die." Nice little motivator to start things out. Barry Sears, the author, goes on to use some other motivational tricks (family bonding, the underdog, idealism, and intellectual bravado), but that first one just grabs you. Will better eating reduce the chance of heart disease? Yes. Will you immediately die if you don't buy this book and read it? No. Get over yoursel, Sears. You've got some quality ideas, but leave the fear alone. I'm sick of it.

Posted by Sky at 2:07 PM | 0 comments