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Young people are afraid. The age of strength, health, and beauty, the age that has yet to grasp the concept of death, is afraid. It fears more than the one that has already counted its dead.
Societies of today's fictitious happiness make fear an alien and dangerous element, outside its existential dimension. Through a process of transference, they allow it to surface as a fear of life. Fear of the material future. Fear of salary. Fear of emotional desert. Fear of emotional commitment. Fear of emotional betrayal. Fear of sexual freedom. Fear of the different.
This fear, in the hands of those who lead, becomes a subtle and effective weapon. The method is simple. They just need to give the impression that fear is being addressed and conquered. That there are solutions and antidotes. That there are defense and precaution processes. Thus, they create vulnerable individuals, as the threat of evil becomes a means of blackmail. Education is limited to professional rehabilitation, and romantic relationships to emotional recovery. Work becomes a means. Money provides security.
But fear is, after all, kneaded into humans. It’s about the ignorance that accompanies them throughout life. However, accepting this ignorance can become their weapon. As people age, they become familiar with fear. None of us has found recipes to deal with it. We only try to realize it, accept it, and live life with it. To understand that every pleasure hides its denial, every bitterness its joy, every beginning its end, every success its downfall. Thus, as we grow older, we become younger, that is, stronger, because we learn that there is no greater fear than the one we can endure, for then we wouldn’t perceive it. The awareness of fear makes a person free. Something that few want and few dare.
If property, goods, relationships, and activities become fortresses against fear, creating the illusion of a shield, then their collapse, always possible, leaves the person facing the fear they thought was conquered and forever buried. However, if one respects their fear as their eternal companion and does not let it direct their choices and interfere with their decisions, then they will allow life to surprise them.
Plato Rivellis