A lot of things have probably been said about fear and how it can render a victim inactive, stunned and unable to believe in their personal willpower.

What if I had something dark over you that wouldn’t go down well with others if they heard it?

But, apart from what it does to the individual, there’s also other aspects of it that people can use to influence actions of others. This is even more frightening than fear itself. Fear of something can be manipulated in so many ways for the operators to always get what they want.

In government circles, it’s entwined with state propagandas and favour trading. In corporate spaces, it manifests in several heartbreaking office politics. In schools, it is the students constant accomplice. In life, fear of the ultimate – death, hence the multitudes of afterlife doctrines to defuse and sustain sanity.

As a tool though, fear can be used for good, for wholesale deterrence, manipulation of the weak, sustaining abusive relationships, remaining a wussy for peanuts, entirely losing self respect for pecuniary gains and widespread acceptance.

There’s the fear in it of everything. That notwithstanding, fear is a fleeting psychological feeling that is not real. Although it can be fueled by your current predicament at any point in time, it only exists in the mind.

If the object of fear is already real, there’s no need to fear it again since its design should be visibly manifest to you. Because it’s no longer in your head taunting you of consequences, it’s last stronghold in your mind remains the inability to face the reality before you.