Welcome back my friends, or first-time readers; it’s great to have you here. I am in recovery from a drug addiction that left me homeless around 7 years ago. That is, I am a former junkie who got his shit together: Alcoholic, addict, liar, cheater, thief, ad infinitum. During this incredible journey into a productive life over the past 7 years, I learned a valuable lesson about myself. I learned that I used to make snap decisions based completely on fear. Where addiction is concerned, that fear manifests as a fear of not getting what I want or subconsciously believe I need. The way chemical abuse rewires the brain, addiction to a hardcore drug of any kind sends a signal to the body that a lack of it means certain doom. That base survival instinct kicks in and takes over, moving that drug above everything else, including food, water, family, etc.
A fear of doom or the unknown leads people to some pretty drastic measures. When you wonder how a crack addict could abandon their child for the drug, this is how. That survival instinct has taken over, and the ability to make a sound, rational decision is all but lost. I am not making excuses as we are all responsible for the choices we make. I am proof that people like me can come back from that hell. That isn’t even what this whole post is about; I just got a little sidetracked there. This post is focusing on that fear that drives the behavior. Not only does such a fear plague drug addicts and alcoholics, but it is also a curse that haunts the general population. The driver of that fear is the media and the politicians and how they use it to keep the population divided is shameful. One of my favorite acronyms for fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. It accurately represents how my perception of reality dictates my ability to make an informed decision. It can also be influenced by false information presented to me that might lead me to make a bad or uninformed decision.
Take the most recent issue with how people have reacted at the gas pumps. Before knowing what actually happened, how much “misinformation” flew across media sites leading people to believe there would be no gas? The fear generated by this misinformation caused mass panic in some areas that actually did cause gas stations to run out of gas. I find it odd how social media sites only take issue with SOME “misinformation” but allow other “misinformation” to flow freely with no recourse. Seriously, I could write a tweet that says, “Actually, it was Trump who personally hacked the pipelines to make Biden look bad because he’s jealous of the relationship Biden and the First Lady have, and he also hates dogs and babies!” and there wouldn’t be a “misinformation” tag on it. I mean, to hell with Trump, but hopefully, you get my point here.
I have grown accustomed to waiting for all the information to come out before I jump on the “Let’s go buy all the gas or toilet paper!” train. In doing so, I have not only saved myself a good deal of money, I have saved myself a solid amount of stress. Living in that kind of fear is a miserable state of existence. I know from experience. The government and the markets it regulates are highly dependent on controlling the fear of the population. When was the last time you saw any fear-mongering about a shortage of cleaning services that caused a mass cleaning service panic?
For me, the big question is why? Why would the government continually cause or, at the very least, allow the markets they regulate to be so inefficient and chaotic? Why would they want to keep the populace fear-buying goods/services that they already buy regularly? Driving inflation and division is the only answer I can think of that makes any sense. I mean, how did a pipeline hack in one of the most regulated industries become public knowledge so quickly and rife with so much misinformation that it caused the mass panic that it did? You would think that the level of regulation on that industry would keep that kind of hack under wraps until it was resolved, considering that is some upper-level shit. Surely it didn’t take them that long to figure out it was hacked, right? So why allow people to keep panic buying gas on misinformation in such a regulated market?
Oh, sure, the politicians can get on the mic and “lecture” at the gas stations about price gouging and what not but can’t let everyone know, “Hey, we figured it out you really don’t have to be buying up all the gas. We got this under control.” It honestly makes me sick. I hope a message can spread that we do not have to live our lives based on crippling fear. We can wait until information comes out because, in the end, the industries aren’t going anywhere. The industries keep the politicians wealthy, and our fear is just a piece of the pie. I hope everyone has a fantastic day, until next time.