Fear: The Mindkiller

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

The Litany Against Fear from Dune contains the famous line, "Fear is the mindkiller." It is a powerful statement illustrating the way fear keeps us from enacting our agency. If we are afraid, we focus on limiting risk instead of overcoming what makes us afraid. If a dictator makes us afraid, fear makes us avoid his wrath instead of protecting ourselves from his rule.

It's easier to cower when there are things that scare us, but that fear only serves to uphold the very thing that scares us. Destroying or limiting what causes our fear may be more risky in the short term than succumbing. Over a longer timescale, however, the inaction that fear causes is more dangerous. If you do nothing to protect your community from a dictator, that dictator has room to exercise even more power over you and make your life even worse.

Fear compounds fear. Fear enables our enemies to make advances that we are unprepared to defend. Fear now makes fear in the future all the more inevitable. Fear is a tool of the enemy. By succumbing to it, we succumb to those who wish to destroy us.

We must reject fear. When we excise this plague from our minds, we are able to see more clearly. We are able to fight back against what makes us afraid and break the cycle of ever-increasing fear. When we reject fear, we enable ourselves to do what is necessary. When we reject fear, we show our community that it's possible to resist. When we reject fear, our enemies fear instead.

Our enemies want us afraid. Let's not give them what they want. We must not fear.