...The SaintsAwards Project...

Those who make us afraid are in the minority. They employ the use of weapons; their weapon is simple but very destructive and formidable. It is called "Intimidation" Fear, the most prevalent weapon of intimidation is destructive and constructive if you're privileged to occupy a position of repute - Steal, loot and maim, it’ll be considered within your jurisdiction of office as a prerogative.

The concept of fear operates on trust. You are only afraid of what you trust to scare you. The the bandit, the unknown - The Police is the government, the bandit, a product of the society and the Unknown are forces that controls both the government and the society. I used to be a victim of fear.

I was virtually afraid of everything, afraid to live, afraid to die, afraid I was going to fail, afraid nothing might work in the long run until I found out that those fears never materialized. I am 30 plus, those fears have remained a fiction of psychological trauma. Not even one has materialized. I was simply trapped in an imaginary intimidation of what I thought could harm my desires to live.

Virtually everything under the face of the sun is a product of imagination until it begins to materialize and blossom. Fear is psychological, very practical and formidable; this is why the art of psychology thrives on human sense of frailness. Of all fears, only one is imminent-The fear to lose.

For the fear of losing out or what ordinary people call "failure" a man will employ every form of absurdity imaginable – you may chose to be a dictator if you are in the politics, you may chose to be very greedy, callous and lacking any kind of conscience, moral or ethical. The truth is; the man is plagued and held bound by "imaginary intimidation" of his own desires to succeed in life. Whereas "failure" in itself is supposed to be another form of creativity.

This kind of fear drives men insane; acquiring and possessing but never enough, so he employs deceits, craftiness, and fraud while the fear to lose drives him from one side of the wall to the other end in fright of losing out. He could be in this race all his life until the fear kills him. Fear kills seven times before the physical death.

Fear is in Phases
Fear is in stages; and advances with age; from the age of 3-10, Parental fear takes center stage of the young lad. From the age of 12 – 18, the teenager is controlled by Societal Fear - everything fascinates him, curiosity rules his sense of fantasy until he begins to run amuck at every buzz. The best time to threaten the individual with all kinds of buzz and deception is within the age of 18 - 28. This is the age of banditry and ruthlessness, the age of discovery and creativity. Our fear is at its peak within this period and is controlled by our sense of fantasy. - Most rebellion and lawlessness known to humanity is committed within this period.

Then from 23 – 32, the fear to become established or succeed drives the human consciousness to the brick wall. From age 33-40, the fear is redefined into a grand deceit of self. The man struggles to prove what he is not if he is a victim of his own fear. And if he is a man that has overcome his fears, at least to an extent, he will be less religious, less political and almost far from the chase of vanity and very principled with life. These groups of people are few.

From the age of 45-58, our fear is diverted to our offspring. We simply transfer the fears and pretend to be very protective of the Children. From the age of 60 – 000, the concept of fear is redefined and almost gone – None of my dead relative ever shown any signs of fear any longer once they clocked 70, they voluntarily released themselves to life, they even participated in their own burial ceremony by taking part of the expenses while they were still alive.

Religious Fear
There is a religious fear I am going to classify as fear of the unknown. The unknown operates under the guise of spirituality and religion - its tool is hypnotism. Even in places where there is no religion –Although that's pure pretense. I have been with people who claimed to have no religion and I found out that such decision was a mere product of their own fears of the unknown. As they begin to grow older, the fear hunts them on a grand scale. You go to the local church, if there is any, or mosque if there is any or any small gathering you will find the same people who said there is no God struggling to find meaning for their existence even at senescence. 70, 80 years old finding meaning to their existence and I just shake my head at the pitiable plight of humanity.

Religion instills discipline to the adherents through fear. When the fear is magnified, it leads to insanity – of attitude and character, such that mature into fanatism and hypocrisy - You can kill an infidel to merit a heaven and be justified as truly religious, you can steal from the helpless and quote Isaiah 61 verse 6; And it says; "ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves." You can take advantage of the poor and threaten them with a message of hell. Religious fear is ruled by the spirit of hypnotism until recently people began to quote Paul the apostle in Galatians 5 Verse 13 and chose a personal direction; "For ye, brethren, were called for freedom."

Economic Fear / Fear of the government
There is an economic fear I am going to classify as the Government - all wielding one strong weapon - intimidation. Economic fear is controlled by the law that governs a state; both written and unwritten. Economic fear is the magic wand of political people and men in authority used to oppress and hold in bondage the victims of their diplomacy. Whether you live abroad or live in your home country, those who posses extra-ordinary traits to make some difference are direct targets of such oppression.

Libya poses a threat to the western world; the fear of Libya under Muamar Qhadaffi caused them to pick the war equipments to douse his ego. Fear is an object of ruin to both self and the society. Qhadaffi, Saddam, and any of those infamous rulers with a sad ending never had the privilege to face their fears until it ruined them. They were simply afraid to let go of their desires until it hunts them down.

Qhadaffi, Saddam, Mugabe and more long serving state rulers were simply afraid to lose out so they cling to the seat of power even at their demise until it turns rounds and burn them. If you're deprived of your funds and incentives through excessive tax cuts you'll live in fear of losing your earning power and relevance, then you're going to work till you drop, you'll cheat and be cheated, this fear will make you do three jobs at the same time in order to beat the scare but the simple truth is, the government is holding you in captivity - tax cuts is no scare to Continental African but in America, excessive tax cut is what the US government uses to put its society in check.

Society Induced Fear
There is a societal fear I am going to classify as Fear of what you trust to scare you. This kind of fear is objective – you have every need to be afraid of a weapon wielding bandit. This kind of fear is abrupt and short-lived. What about the bandit with no weapon - the guy behind the computer? At the height of your fear to lose your desires to fondle the breast the fake cyber girl is showing you on the webcam or to lose the million dollars booties he wants to transfer to your account you quickly sell off out rightly and when the bandit reaps you off, you cry foul and blame us. You forgot, you have just been a victim of your own fears – the fear to lose!

Societal fear is controlled by the people through ego; it's an animal world, everybody wants to appear as better off than others. Everybody wants to be happier and comfortable than the neighbour next door so he takes advantage of those he considered a stumbling block to his happiness and comfort.

A finger-pointing world trapped in the blame game lives in fear of each other, fear of guns, fear of blackmail, depression and excessive bizarre excitement, the fear of a loss of this excitement drives the individual insane so much that he commits atrocities against humanity in order to enjoy and maintain his freedom, happiness, comfort and ego.

Such insanity rules most state rulers with questionable characters. It is a product of self-imposed madness of the mind! Then if your government denies you certain privileges like basic amenities due all citizens, you have no job, no decent accommodation, no regular electricity over your head, no friends of repute, you suddenly becomes a victim of every buzz - religious, social and economic -the fear to live and survive the pressures of poverty, misery and hopelessness will plague such victims to an extent that every move is scary. They become so dreadful until they are ruined by their own fear to live.

Fear; a two edged sword
I grow up watching bizarre things happen to countless bizarre people I consider very astonishing. Once there was this bodiless head story in the city of Lagos in the 80's- we paid to go and watch it-the story was; a man and his friend had a rift and the friend grabbed a cutlass and cut off his other friend's head in anger but instead of the man dying, the bodiless head kept talking, then the friend, according to the story picked up the bloodied head and wrapped it in a cloth as the bodiless head gave instruction on things that’s going to happen in future, so Mr. Friend looked for a box and decorated the bodiless head and mount it on a box covering it with a white cloth so people could go and watch and listened to the bodiless head tell them what’s going to happen in the future.

And the bizarre thing was, the bodiless head could drink beer - Guinness beer preferably, the bodiless head could smoke Marlboro cigarette and even eat some rice too. One day, after so many days the local TV stations had been televising this for the ever curious Lagosians, the Police got pissed off with this absurdity and decided to find out what happened when the bodiless head drinks beer or eat rice. Did the food run back into his bodiless head or drop off where?

The Police couldn't take this shit anymore so they decided to bust the bodiless head and his friend and like they had expected they found out this was a grand deceit. There was no bodiless head and everything had been a well crafted lie. The bodiless head is a full man. He had been squatting in the box with only his head sticking out. It was scary; Mr. Friend had decorated the bodiless head to look like some Shrine of a kind. In the midnight, he will crawl out and eat all the foods submitted by spectators who were already trying to make a deity of the bodiless head. In those days there was less of religion in Nigeria as it is today.

The police got so upset, why these two young men could fool the entire city of Lagos this far, they beat them a little and rain a hell of questions on them and they meekly cried out. "We have no money, the government don't care about us, we couldn't get employment so we were afraid of not being able to marry, we were afraid of not being able to own a car in our entire lifetime, we were afraid of not being able to do this, we were afraid of not been able to do that and so much more of everything their fear could imagine.

The Police now got real upset and kick them hard, cuffed them and paraded them before the national TV as dumb criminals. The police seized all the money they have made and hurriedly threw them into jail. Those guys made some good money deceiving half of Lagos city until they got busted. That is the trick of fear. Fear, the most potent weapon of psychological warfare is destructive, a two edged sword. It will drive you wild by exaggerating every situation, making you see things from a very scary perspective until the fear began to drive you insane.

The same situation you were running away from will drive you into further chaos of the mind and soul until you are completely ruined or wrapped up in misery. The fear to succeed in life had driven Mr. Friend and his bodiless head friend to plot such grand deceit for the entire city of Lagos, it was such a huge hoax - they succeeded. These guys were running away from their fears of not succeeding in life. It deceived them to the jail house until the thought of success quickly varnished and was replaced with the thought to live again. Of what use is the thought to succeed to prisoners when chances of dying in detention is very possible.

That is the deceit of fear-to make you see vague conclusions and exaggerated news reports of Africa's poverty, so much that you run away from home to scavenge in Europe, run like rats for the police in China, waste your prime plotting grand larceny over the computer. Suddenly you make some big hit like Mr. Friend and his Bodiless head dude-they did made a lot of money in those days. You will live big and everybody will admire you until you get busted – you will always get busted - it's just a question of how long. Then the same fear you were running away from will turn you in and plague you to a complete halt.
(to be continued)

God Bless
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