I’ve learned in the last few years that there is a considerable amount of fear around, and many people would like to feel less of it. I’ve been thinking about it as I’ve wrestled with it, day and night, blessed it, embraced it, meditated on, medicated myself for it, and battered my head against stone walls (doesn’t work) to try and figure it out. Since I learned to accept it and let it go its own way, I have been getting somewhere.

Reading Wendell Berry’s Mad Farmer poems, though I’ve had some epiphanies about fear and how it works and why we have so much of it here. This is my notion, not Berry’s, although he started it by pointing out that it’s the sane people who are made to think they are crazy by the crazy people, who we are manipulated into thinking are sane.

I’ll try it this way. Think of these circles – systems of fear – if you will, systems that make us perpetually fearful.

– Political Circle of Fear. When I lived around New York, the idea was that the Republicans were sort of like Nazi’s, about to destroy the country. Send us money. We needed to stop them.

When I moved upstate, the idea was that Democrats are Nazi’s or (much worse up here), Socialists. We need to stop them. Send money, any amounts will do.Whichever side is in power, it is important for the other side to see them as hateful and fearful. Otherwise, nobody will send any money.

– Media circle of Fear. We used to get bad news once a day, or even once a week. We now get it every minute, and if you looked at the news today, you would see that not one good thing happened on this once happy planet. Nobody did well, fell in love, recovered from surgery, wrote a good book, made a good movie, built a successful business,  or felt good. Not one, anywhere on the earth. Since so many catastrophes are happening so frequently, and they are so urgent (bombings, floods, slaughters, multiple Armageddons, bankruptcies, pots and catastrophes), and they come to us so quickly and graphically in so many different venues, then you need to pay attention every minute so you will be safe and informed when the catastrophe gets to you, as it inevitably will. Once news was about being informed. Now it is about being annoyed or angered. Or better, scared out of your wits. Watch news and see the ads (or send money).

– Weather (a counsin of media fear). Before Storm Center, the weather used to be something we wondered about, so we would know how to dress. Now, it is an almost daily hysteria. Dress warmly. Stay indoors (or only go out if absolutely necessary). Drink plenty of liquids. If you are (gasp!) an OLD person, then stay indoors. Watch out for the wind chill index. The weather is so dire that we can text or e-mail you severe weather alerts. Carr, a farmer over the hill, says he and his Dad used to love the snow, and he never thought snow was dangerous until he got Cable TV and his wife discovered Storm Center. Now, she gives him emergency food supplies  and toe warmers when he gets on the tractor in the winter.

– Health Care Circle of Fear. You may have cancer, heart disease, worms, Lyme disease, or any number of predatory and fearful things coursing through your body at any time. Do not pay attention to your body or the people who know. Or even to how you feel.  Go frequently to the doctor and get pills and tests immediately. Send money to the pharmaceutical and surgical equipment companies who love you and only want to give you a happy and healthier life.  Or to the lawyers who are dining out on your medical miseries. Send lots of money. Even though Americans do not live longer or become healthier than any other Western nation, they are sure sending more money to more people (twice as much), and are terrified about losing this privilege.

– Circles of fear for children. Too many to list individually. Playgrounds (benches and swings), strangers, Internet, toys, flu, creeps, foods, McDonald’s, cell phone texting, computer games, Peanut Butter. Where does the money go? Lawyers. Settlements.

– Customer Service/Online Banking Circle. Anybody who knows a thing about technology knows you have to control it, or it controls you. Yesterday, I spent an hour trying to convince Verizon’s “wonderfully easy” online billing system to acknowledge that I had a phone. Eventually I got a temporary PIN phoned in to me. Then got another call telling me to call Security because my PIN had been changed. Security closes at 9 p.m. It was 10 p.m.  Good luck. We care about your call, but get lost.  I have sheep so I know what it like to be herded. I am being herded every day. Into online banking, where I am alone and at the mercy of Customer Service. Because we accept the idea that we don’t need humans anymore so companies like Verizon can make more money. And I like technology.

So I don’t have any more space, but when you connect the dots, it looks something like this. You are frightened because the Nazi’s are taking over, heavy rains are coming, you can’t afford “health care”, and your family is surrounded by dangers and poisons and predators. And you have been driven online into the cold, cold world of “Customer Service” and “Tech Support,” two oxymorons if ever there were two, and you don’t have nearly enough money to send to everybody and even if you do, it won’t help, because this isn’t about problems, it’s about keeping you in a fearful state so you keep sending money to companies that really care about you but unfortunately have to scare the pants off you to keep you focused on your wretched life, and the many dangers to it.. You get scared (don’t tell anybody how much your dogs cost!) because you have completely bought into these other Circles (you can’t call them people, you have to call them Circles) and their many warnings and  ideas about what  safety and security does and is, and why you need so much money to live.

And the odds are you are resigned to it, and don’t even complain. And you can guess why. You’re scared. I’m busting out of some of these circles – none of their news for me, and DirecTV goes after my daughter visits on Xmas. I’m working on the health care thing. I have been waiting for Wendell Berry for much of my life.