Fear is Fear is Fear....

You may have noticed that we are in the midst of the presidential primary season here in the US. McCain has wrapped up the Republican nomination, but Obama and Clinton are still slugging it out. Both Obama and Clinton have disavowed Bush and his fear mongering politics, but Clinton has been playing the same fear card that has disguised itself as economics. Fear is fear, whether it is a fear of terrorism or a fear of losing your job and not being able to provide for your family. There is also the fear of change and it is this fear that underlies all the others.

What is fear? Fear represents a lack of trust that the future will bring contentment. Fear does not reside in the present moment, or the NOW if you prefer. When you are fearful you are fearful of something that does not exist in the moment that you are being fearful. I know what I have, but I don’t know what the future will bring if I change course. This is fear of change. I have been trying to attach words to the feelings I get when listening to Barack Obama. He encourages me to be self-responsible. He invites me to participate in the process of government. This is juxtaposed to McCain and Clinton, who tell me what they will do for me. The change that Obama represents to me, and I suspect to the millions that support his candidacy, is not government as usual, but rather, government of and by the people. Although I have always voted, I never really felt as though my vote counted for much, because other than exercising my right to vote I was never invited to empower myself. Obama invites us to self-empowerment much as Kennedy did when he said in his inaugural address, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” I get the sense that Obama is saying, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for yourself.”

Self-empowerment is scary business. “Who will take care of me?” “I can’t fully take care of myself.” “What if I lose my Job?” “Who will feed my kids?” “I’ll lose everything.” “If we don’t close our borders the terrorists will get in.” There is a great deal of victim mentality in these statements, but more than that there is fear. Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew about the dragon of fear when he said, “There is nothing to fear, but fear itself.” He had an intuitive sense that fear immobilizes. How do we immobilize ourselves in the present moment? By being fearful of the moment that has not yet arrived. Where do we create the moment that has not yet arrived? In the present moment. Where are we in the moment when our attention is on something that has not happened yet? Well, we sure aren’t in the only moment that creates the future, which is the one you are currently experiencing.

So, what does fear have to do with this election and the three candidates, McCain, Clinton and Obama? In getting at this it is important to remember that the objective (outer) world is symbolic of our subjective (inner) literal world. McCain represents the status quo and is the representative of those who fear change the most, but Clinton is not far behind. She is feminine gender, but for the most part expresses a masculine persona. She wants government to do what she believes we are incapable of doing ourselves. She represents the mother that wants to fix, fix, fix her children, but cannot see her children fixing themselves. Obama is physically symbolic of change. Yes, he is of male gender, but expresses a decidedly intuitive and therefore feminine orientation. (I refer you back to my posts on Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.) Symbolically his genetic makeup represents the world as a whole and therefore the downfall of tribalism on both a local and global scale.

All this is not to say that Obama is not ready to lead our country, for he is. All this is to say that we can change business as usual in Washington. All it takes is a little courage and a little faith in that inner voice that you may hear that says, “Trust this man for the future is now.”
Bill Marshall