Look what I did everybody!

by **Mitch Shredder** Mon Apr 07, 2008 3:29 pm

Today, I wrote a 400 word essay on fear for Doomraider. As he is a high school senior, I thought mine would suck and be way under his standards. Well, I worked really hard on it, and then he said that he would have to tone down the awesomeness to make his teacher believe he wrote it. YAY ME! Here it is:

Fear. A natural reaction, bred through thousands of years of human life and fed through constant perceived threats. In modern day society, fear is everywhere. In the media, on televison and in movies. Throughout history, there have been the two great fears. The fear of death, ever present in all religions, shown through the promise of "the afterlife" trying to make death something to be accepted. And of course, there is always, the fear of anything we don't understand. Racism, homosexuality, and to some extent nightmares are caused by this strange human reaction that nobody can seem to figure out. Of course, fear doesen't have to be something complicated, as at its base level it is just a chemical reaction. The face widens and tightens in shock, as your heart goes into overdrive with the sudden kick. The most common reaction to something frightening is to cover yourself, and curl into a ball, as if that can stop it. Fear has evolved with mankind, from the simple fear of all the dangers of prehistory, to the suspicion and distrust. Fear is occasionally genetic, but mostly it is our upbringing that causes us to fear what we do. Ever since September 11 and other terrorist attacks, the xenophobia of the world has multiplied many times over. Now there are even government rules encouraging this, with all the looking the other way that was been done over the horrors at Abu Grahib and Guantonomo Bay. Of course, fear has been a major part of politics for so long we've forgot how it started. But it is easy to use, all you must do is create or pick out an enemy, and say "Vote for me, and I will protect you!" This has been evidenced by American Presidents and other government figures. Wether it's Joe McCarthy discriminating and trying so hard to find probably non-existent Communists living among us, to all the countless people warning about the Nazis, the Soviets, and anybody else different who has been bad. There is no way to stop fear, and we have learned to live with it and control it. Unfortunately, it has caused us to do many horrible things to other human beings not so different over the years. People have stood up and tried to stem the tide, but the mass hysteria is too much. And the worst thing is, fear kills. Wether it is giant massacres, or heart attacks, fear is hard to understand, but we have to try, because it is a part of us.