It’s a wonder to me why so many movies and novels are produced that portray demons, vampires, aliens, and monsters of all kinds when people who see or read them can be positively scared by these inventions. What is the fascination for humans of scaring ourselves? Isn’t life troublesome enough that we have to add more scary elements to it? We create these monsters and then allow them to scare us, and in some cases they also have power over us. Is this something that we allow to spread into our normal everyday lives? that we not only allow demons to have power over us, but also various human beings whom we empower through our adulation. Isn’t it a fact that what we think about, we also empower? This can vary in range, from movie stars, pop stars, politicians, clergymen, supervisors, and bosses. And, of course, monsters, enemies, and demons! The fabric of our nightmares!
Our nightmares and fears can vary in state from the simplistic, for example, the fear of a spider, to the fear of people in our daily lives, such as teachers, policemen, to greater fears of the unknown, of the enemy that we cannot see and even wild animals I’ve never encountered! The fear of our own failure is something that we have probably all faced at some point in our lives. And many of us as children have been threatened with and by authority figures to scare us and behave. Our parents have threatened us on occasions with the police or the dreaded “ghost”, to scare us and behave. Or were our parents afraid that their authority would be in doubt and they would have to resort to one of greater weight?
That a person has authority over another human being does not always mean that the one in authority is better or more intelligent than the subordinate below. In fact, sometimes, and possibly most of the time, this is not the case. But if the student does not ultimately outshine the teacher, then the student has not really learned anything significant. And any teacher who has had an overshadowed pupil in their own field should be proud to have helped create this star.
But being afraid of being overshadowed by our students or frightened by our own or someone else’s demons, or intimidated by those in authority over us is something we should seriously examine and question. This is not an anarchist idea. It is simply, and I think intelligently and with due respect, a redefinition of the relationships, dogmas, and creations that we have allowed to take over us. We are warned not to question “our best” or the authorities. Who are our best?
I believe that the wisest people are those who are the humblest and would never assume they are better than anyone else and would never assume they have control over us. My example would be known and established people of great and recognizable integrity. Two names instantly come to mind: Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. These are people who have cleaned skeletons from their own closets and cast demons out of their psyches, faced them, embraced them, and turned fear into its opposite: love. And make yourself available to humanity to help create a better world. People of this caliber will always be aware that they are the ones who learn the most from their peers and not the other way around. They would also be people who see life as it is, without taboos, class levels, dogmas and superstitions.
I often wonder where our superstitions come from in the first place. Were they “invented” by people who recognized the fears within us and used those fears to have control over us for their own selfish, and mostly wrong, purposes? Someone who has his good at heart would never use him in a manipulative way: he would never impose an idea on him that was not for his own good. Once we accept these superstitions and accept them, we give the “inventor” of superstition control over us. And if we ourselves are the inventors, then we give control to superstition itself and we have done ourselves a disservice. One that will require a lot of self-employment and probably a lot of professional help to eradicate it.
We haven’t learned our lesson from “The Wizard of Oz” yet. We have created our monsters and allow them to dominate us. We still see “Oz” as a children’s story with a children’s story and comic book characters with some memorable songs scattered around. The message escapes us. It was the little dog, with his doggy, inquisitive nose that didn’t think, who sniffed the human manipulator behind the monster and exposed him for what he really was; a sham. But we still seem to be fascinated by monsters and ghosts. Our bookstores are full of horror novels. Our filmmakers make a lot of money scaring us. Computer game stores are full of aliens and monsters to explode. All in the name of entertainment!
Nor have we learned from our past. Great civilizations have risen and fallen. Wars have spread through our lands and have been relegated to history. Great men have lived and died. Economies have flourished and collapsed. These all rise and fall only to repeat the pattern over and over again. If history has taught us anything, it is that we can be manipulated over and over again. And we fall in love with the same “tricks” over and over again. Most of us are gullible and clever manipulators use it against us for their own benefit, while also telling us that it is for our own good. And we swallow it wholeheartedly. Will we ever learn?
We may not be aware of what we must learn. We study in schools and collages the topics that interest us, or what we think will give us a good life. But is that all? An interest; a livelihood. Do we ever stop to study ourselves? To really stop and look at who we are. How we behave with others. How we react to our friends, acquaintances, family, bosses … Someone reacts unfavorably to something we said or did. Is the fault in me or in the viewer? Or I recognize a weakness in another person and use that weakness to manipulate and bring them down. Do we see our own inhumanity towards our fellow men? Should I not acknowledge that the defect is probably in myself and I need to find ways to correct it?
Are the demons we have created really the demonic side of our own nature? Have we allowed ourselves to be afraid of that part of us? The dark side of us: the negative aspect. Is it like saying that we are afraid of our own hand? to hurt us. I believe that the demons that scare us are mere inventions of our imagination over which we seem to have little control and are allowed to grow out of control, sometimes to insane proportions. I think they are just the negative side of our duality. After all, we have become what we think we are and these are our own creations. Even if we participate in its creation as part of the collective consciousness. And then we allow them to live within us. We feed them with our fears.
With a little effort we could easily banish them and get rid of them, and like the unwanted weeds that choke the flowers in our garden, we should uproot and consume in the fire of our wisdom. But perhaps, deep down, we are as attached to our dark side as we are to our brightness; attached to our hatreds as much as to our loves; Our dislikes as much as our likes!
In reality, there is nothing to fear except fear itself, says the voice of wisdom. And that fear is the greatest demon of all. That is the basis of all our problems. Take him down and the entire edifice of our demons and the shadows of our doubts will collapse.