selfie hand Eric Kim Ricoh

WHY FEAR?

Obviously fear is a good thing, because it has kept us (human beings) alive for so long. But in today’s very safe world (relatively speaking), what is the new role of fear?

1. Avoid traumatic death

The first thing — avoid traumatic death. This means things like:

  • Dying in a texting-while-walking accident
  • Dying in a car accident
  • Dying in a scuba diving accident

‘Traumatic death’ as a death which is NOT related to disease or illness. For example, anything which is NOT cancer and NOT heart-disease/heart attacks, etc.

2. How I plan on avoiding traumatic death

New rules I have set for myself:

  1. Never own another sports car: I know I will be tempted to drive recklessly, and I might kill myself, kill someone else, or kill both myself and someone else. Also, I don’t want the chance to kill Cindy if she’s in the car with me. My promise: I am not allowed to die before Cindy.
  2. Doing nothing which can actually give me a likely chance of traumatic death: For example, no texting while driving, no texting while walking, no listening to music while walking, no listening to music or podcasts when driving. In the past, changing the podcast station or changing the music while driving almost lead me to dying in a car accident. Also, if I will ever buy another car it will probably be a Tesla Cybertruck or anything that is literally a tank– to protect me from all the other metal missiles on the road (other drivers).

3. Fear losing money, followers, influence, power?

Another fear we got is losing resources, manpower, social status, etc. But if we take a stoic approach and know that we got nothing to fear, then why fear these things?

  1. Let us say you lose money. All you need to survive is meat, coffee, and to pay your rent. Everything else is fine.
  2. Let us say you lose followers and influence. No biggie– as long as you have 1 true fan, that is all you need.
  3. Losing stuff. Let us say you lose your home, car, possessions, whatever. What do you really need? Your digital camera (RICOH) and a laptop. You don’t need anything else.

4. The fear of losing your life, death.

What does it feel like to die or be dead? The same feeling as never being born.

I think most of us fear the pain associated with death, or the pain pre-ceding death. But not the death itself.

Or do you fear eternal pain and suffering in damnation? Or do you fear that you’re not gonna go to heaven?

Do you fear the afterlife? But what if you don’t believe in an afterlife?

My motto from Lucretius:

Death is nothing to us.

5. Fear of losing your strength or vigor?

I think many of us fear old age. Why? Senescence is the biological term for ‘aging’. But this is the interesting point:

You can be 80 years old and still hyper-healthy, and still stronger and more vigorous compared to a 40-year-old.

We don’t fear old age. What we fear is loss of mobility (not able to walk by yourself), losing our mental strength, our physical strength, etc.

But what if we could live to 120 years old in hyper-health– full of physical and mental vigor? Then why fear old age?

Conclusion: Fear is for suckers

My conclusion:

From a logical perspective, we got nothing to fear.

ERIC

PHILOSOPHY by KIM

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