New Weapons

The French postmodernist philosopher Gilles Deleuze stated in his essay Postscript on the Societies of Control that in the future totalitarian landscape:

                        “There will be no need to fear or hope, only to look for new weapons.”

When we are faced with the situations that we fear in life, the flight-or-fight responses kick in.

Flight: You can’t run away from the problem fast enough, seeking a safe place; when it rears its ugly head again, you run again.

Fight: Pure and unadulterated anger completely take you over and it won’t stop until something gives; either you or it.

These scenarios are objectively quite unfortunate, but there is no need to state this since having fear is such an obvious horrific thing to have; this is a given.

But people do, in the face of danger, hang their hats upon “hope”, a brighter and better future...for tomorrow.

The problem with hope is that the future never arrives. Tomorrow never comes. When the clock strikes 12:00 am it is right “now”.The constant waiting for a bountiful harvest is going to be provided for you when exactly?

                                                       No one knows the day or the hour…

This places us in an unfortunate double bind. Our hopes are born out of our fears. To hope for something means that your current situation is quite terrible or terrible-impending, and this fear causes you to strive for something better.

But nothing born out of fear will get you anywhere you want to be. Do not fly away from your fears or let them consume you. Take a step back during your heightened emotional state. Feel as if you are mentally observing yourself outside of your person and analyze this state. Ask yourself “why” am I feeling this way? What is the problem “exactly”? What will I do from here on”.
This questioning process is your ‘new weapon’, if it will not solve your problems born out of fear, it will at least distance yourself from your emotions.

You will see that your emotions rise and fall, come and go seemingly randomly, and you can just quietly observe them when they are present and wave goodbye when they leave; all the while not affecting who you are as a person.

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