Do you feel the presence of danger right now?
Because I certainly do. Someone is after me. Or something. As I pen this digital essay from the comforts of my pitch-black living room, I sense an impending doom creeping in on my soul. To the theoretical onlooker, all is quiet on my Western Front. But this is not the case on the other side of the wall that separates my gray matter from the rest of the universe. Inside of my own mind, I am waging a psychological warfare with my worst enemies. I fear what will happen if I don’t spill my thoughts and ideas on the screen. With every word typed, every paragraph finished, every essay published, I fight back against this mysterious entity that pursues me like a bloodhound with a fresh scent.
You may be wondering at this point the legitimacy of these said enemies. And to that question, I would tell you that you are correct in your assessment, and that these enemies are completely fabricated. Furthermore, you may also be asking if this extreme mental exercise is even necessary in the first place. After all, these enemies are made up. Sources of unwanted stress. Fear is the mindkiller, they say, and there is no reason to be afraid these days. I agree with those reservations. It all may seem irrational, but perhaps the paragraphs to follow will offer an explanation.
But first, I would ask you to think long and hard about your own enemies and fears. Who or what is chasing you? Are they striking a deep feeling of fear in you? You may look around modern society and struggle to find a worthy opponent in the first place. Sure, political pundits may babble on incessantly about the other side’s inherent vileness and intention to do no good. Conspiracy theorists may go on legendary tirades about Satanic cabals and globalist New World Order schemes. And perhaps your friends and family might be quivering in anxiety about the latest news headline.
Maybe those enemies feel real to you. But to me, they don’t. There is nothing personal about an evil regime plotting to take over the world. For me, the enemies must live closer to home. They must know my name and address. And most importantly, I must deeply fear my enemies – even if they are a figment of my own imagination.
Fear is a crucial aspect of this mental exercise, as it signifies a clear and present danger. One of my goals over the past few years has been to rediscover the unbridled energy I possessed as a kid and cultivate that energy into more productive endeavors now that I have the means to do so as an adult. There is one thing for certain that no child lacks and that is a powerful imagination. Often stemming from that raw, creative energy is an irrational sense of fear of certain machineries in the world. It might be something as trivial as a character from a movie or TV show that struck a nerve while you were quivering under the covers. Or perhaps it was something more tangible, such as the neighbor’s rabid German Shepherd that seemed to always hop the fence whenever you were conveniently playing in the yard.
Whatever the culprit may have been, the end result was the same. You were stopped dead in your tracks, your flight or flight instincts took over, and you were deeply present in the current moment. Perhaps you opted for one of the two options granted to us by evolutionary mechanisms. Or perhaps you did neither, and instead reacted how a deer in headlights might react. Either way, you felt an overwhelming rush of raw human emotion hijack your five senses, and you were forced to make a quick decision. And it is precisely that energy - the same energy that I also described in the paragraph above - that I am trying to channel like a hydroelectric dam harnessing the power of water.
Now, I might not be able to perfectly replicate that feeling in the real world. After all, I am not afraid in the literal sense - how could I be? My enemies have no physical presence. There is no rabid German Shepherd chasing me up the ladder of my play set. I can’t magically turn on and turn off the adrenal gland or the fight or fight response. The best I can do is try to simulate those feelings in my mind. Create an unfounded sense of urgency, if you will.
To use fitness as a cheap yet useful example: I have many motivations to exercise. Movement makes me feel good physically/mentally, it helps me attract mates, it is flat out fun being jacked – the list goes on. But I must admit that one of the motivations that gets me started in the first place is fear of what might happen if I skip that particular day of activity. A logical person might say that skipping a single workout will have little to no effect on my fitness levels in the long run. And I would agree with them. But we are not talking about logic here. We are talking about an irrational fear of becoming morbidly obese if I even consider the thought of skipping a workout. The thought that I will wake up the next morning confided to an electric scooter, and the highlight of my day will be motoring around Walmart in search of the newest Doritos flavor.
In this case, my invisible boogeyman is the worst version of my physical self. It’s the pudgy 23-year-old who let himself go a bit too much in the postgraduate world. The now 25-year-old with a faint six pack hates that version of himself. But more than anything, he is deathly afraid of that ghost. And he will do anything and everything he possibly can to avoid reverting to that miserable state of being.
And it runs even deeper than that. The boogeyman is obesity. It is lethargy. It is dying a slow, lonely, and painful death behind the cold walls of the hospital. The boogeyman is prescription medications and delivery apps.
Which makes me think that there is in fact one common enemy that us 21st century renaissance men and women can unite behind – modernity. I said that the enemy was nameless, faceless, and imaginary. And it is – as stated before, there is little that exists in the present-day that is an immediate threat to our lives. You can more than likely think of some names, companies, and entities that might fall under this category – I won’t name any specifically, so I’ll let you use your imagination. The identity doesn’t matter anyway – what matters is that we show up and fight. What matters is that we go beyond complaining and theorizing on social media, and instead take great action to overcome this enemy.
If you look closely enough, you will see plenty of brave souls who have already started this campaign. Honest, humble, and unwavering human beings who have dedicated their craft to the greater good. Architects and engineers battling the monstrosity we call “modern architecture” with every blueprint sketched and every foot of concrete poured. Local farmers and homesteaders fighting back against the over-reliance on the supply chain with every seed sowed and tree chopped. Fitness freaks and gym rats quarreling with debilitation and disease with every weight lifted and mile ran.
And who better to join this noble cause than the artists of the world? Every time a writer pens an essay, short story, or poem, he thrusts his sword deep into the center mass of the amorphous blob we call “content”. Every brushstroke by the contemporary painter is an attempt to revive the greatness of art. Every scene captured by the independent filmmaker is a big “f you” to the streaming giants of the world.
Our enemies are not real enemies in the sense that they are not trying to kill us in a literal sense. And for that reason, I cannot consider them real enemies. At least not to the general public - they are invisible to the untrained eye. But what they are after is arguably more vile than what any saber tooth tiger or flesh-eating virus was after in ages of the past. Death of the flesh and bones is one thing, but death of the soul is an even scarier thought.
So we wage these wars to avoid becoming a tragedy of modernity. And perhaps more importantly, we wage these wars to inspire future generations to pick up where we left off when our time has come to rest. We may not be able to win the war in our lifetime, but the least we can do is die trying - die trying and remind our descendants that without a common enemy, there is nothing worth fighting for. Nothing worth living for. We can show them that fear is not something that should be avoided. That fear is in fact not the mindkiller, but rather having nothing to fear in the first place is the real mindkiller. We can show them - we will show them - that if life ever becomes too easy, too mediocre, too perpetual - that you can always roll up the sleeves, load up the rifle, and lead the charge against the invisible boogeymen of the world.
I have nothing else to say, as I must now lace up my boots, put on my flak jacket, and head off to the battlefield. Perhaps I will see you out there, dear reader. And I hope to see you on the other side. But before I go, I will leave you with the same question I posed at the beginning of this stream of consciousness:
Do you feel the presence of danger right now?
Onwards,
Tony