Why Fear is our only God

“Radio? Nah, fuck it. Turn it off, Fear is your only God.”

Vietnow, Rage Against the Machine



When I was a young boy, about 7 or 8 I think, my Father used to go away for the summer. He didn’t take me, my sister, or indeed my Mum. In the four or so weeks he would be away, I used to wait religiously for the phone to ring, to see if it was him. He would phone once during his holiday, we would never know when.


When he did call, it would be collect and I would get to speak to him for maybe five minutes, as we would be worried about the bill. Then it would be another two weeks until he returned. We wouldn’t know when this would be, but we would have a ball park date; his family would just have to wait.


In one of the many heart to hearts I have had with my Mother since these dog days, she has recalled these years only once. She remembers every summer me as a young boy, kneeling on the sofa, peering out of the window for minutes, hours and days;waiting for a taxi to pull up and my Dad to jump out. She told me of how she used to encourage me to go and play outside, or bribe me with chocolate, but to no avail, I would wait, like my Father’s lapdog, for him to return.


Anyway, this book isn’t about me, its a series of beliefs borne out of my experiences. I know from a series of painful lifecoaching and counselling sessions, what these summers did to me. They made me fear. I feared rejection, I feared neglect. I feared my father would never come home, I feared he would leave because of me. I feared my Mum and sister would then hate me. I feared being alone.


I sit here 25 years later, a very happy man. And guess what? My Father did leave. It took him 6 years of surreptitious holidays to America and underhanded nights in London, but he left. My sister and I do not speak. There is too much bad blood and dark memories to be overturned at this stage. I love my Mum with all my heart and I try everyday to heal what my Father took away from her. I never will, but I will continue to try.


Something happened though, whether it was me or him or someone else, but after my Dad left, something changed. I lost fear.


I zip back into the present and recall a conversation, I have had with my lifecoach Graham. Graham is somewhat of a guru to me. Without him, my journey from being a fully-fledged cog in the matrix, to whatever I am now, would never have happened. His wisdom and bravery inspire me daily. Anyway, I tell him numerous times how I want to quit my job, but I am too scared to do it. He says, what have you got to lose? I talk about my four year old daughter and how could I be so selfish, to jeopardise her future? He says, what would your daughter rather want, you happy or unhappy? Good point.


Modern Britain is consumed wholly in fear. It is immersed, wrapped, powdered and seasoned in frightening ideas and scary thoughts. If Materialism and Media are the henchman, Fear is the ethos underpinning it all.



“There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.” -Andre Gide



I remember first moving to my small village, buoyed by the thoughts of quaint, English living; twee tea rooms and old-fashioned ale-serving pubs. Everything went smoothly, we arrived, we settled in, we relaxed. We had moved from South London where fear of the scary monsters were worse, or so you would think.


It was spring time and I was in the foolish mindset I get every year about that time, to lose the weight, I have never lost and begin a new fitness regime (I wont go into the fear of being overweight, produced by the media or henchman number 2).


So, I would diligently come downstairs at 6.30am, throw the rug out of the back door and commence ‘Insanity,’ the latest fitness craze. I would be buff in 60 days!


One day, I was slightly later than normal and came down in a hurry. More importantly, afterwards I left in a hurry, forgetting to close the back door, or indeed bring the rug back inside.


The day ran pretty normally, until I received a phone call via reception; it was my next door neighbour. Panic started to set in, fear started it’s merry theme tune. What could have happened?


After a few phone calls to and fro, it turns out that they had noticed that the back door was wide open and the rug out in the garden. Ok, but..? But nothing, they were just worried. They thought we may have been burgled (darn, scary monsters!) and went around to check, but we hadn’t been. After a series of smiles and thankyous, I continued my day, safe in the knowledge that our move to the country was a roaring success and that lovely people were generally looking out for us. Then I thought a bit deeper and thought, hang on a minute, what has just happened?


To what ends had our next door neighbours gone too, to find out 1) had we been burgled 2) that we hadn’t 3) to find out our full names 4) where indeed we worked 5) to get the number and so on. I got a bit freaked out in all honesty. In my heart of hearts, I know this is an act of true altruism (hopefully not boredom) but what concerned me more here, was the fabric of fear that had caused the phone call in the first place.


The bottom line, is people live in perpetual fear of anything and everything. It is once again the dear old government, attempting to keep people angry yet compliant. I did some further investigation in the local community and people’s perceptions. Here are my findings, handily summarised by yours truly:

There are lots of new people from London coming into the village, not to mention the Eastern Europeans. They have even opened a car wash in the village! Muggings of course are on the up. An old lady from around the corner had her bag stolen walking to the station the other day. Typical. There are more gypsies and travellers moving into the site up the road. Finally, do watch your cats, because if foxes don’t get them around here, there is a lady from the estate around the corner who likes to poison them if they come into her garden - General views I have heard by the locals

Interesting. And what underpins all of these things? You guessed it FEAR! Fear of change, fear of things being different. Well, fear for fear’s sake really.


Since living here, I have experienced, zero acts of crime. Except being threatened and punched on a cricket pitch by one of the people deemed to be a stalwart of this community that needs protecting. More on this later.


Every day, I check my phone, there is someone else in the community, moaning about more houses and more people coming into the village. They are not interested in what they can bring, just what they will take. The fabric of fear.


My community is is an easy example to use, but this is the general perception all over. People are worried about the scary monsters around the corner. In the 1980’s it was Blacks, the 90’s Asians, now it’s Eastern Europeans and Muslims who are the reason to be worried. Listen to your government! They will protect you from the threat! But how do the government continue to weave their magic spell over the masses, even in the digital age, when we have real knowledge at our finger tips? Because the digital age is being used by them, to keep us all submerged in the quagmire of fear and trepidation.


Copyright wont allow me to use the montage of Daily Mail headlines I had inserted here, but the headlines are frightening. Instructional, directive language. Subjective, racist viewpoints. Aggressive and angry style of writing. Welcome to the mainstream British media and henchman number 2.

Work - why is it unfulfilling?

Jobs - Blackmail of the soul

“It is horrible to think that the world could one day be filled with nothing but those little cogs, little men clinging to little jobs and striving towards bigger ones - a state of affairs which is to be seen once more, as in the Egyptian records, playing an ever-increasing part in the spirit of our present administrative system, and especially of its offspring, the students. This passion for bureaucracy ... is enough to drive one to despair.” Max Weber

Well this is a biggie and obviously an important one as according to the Daily Mail (well you have to get stats from somewhere I suppose - we will come onto the Media later), we have the highest employment rate for years. Nearly 30 million British people are employed and the unemployment rate has dropped to 7%. What does this tell us? People love work? Let’s investigate. 

I am lucky to be married to a woman who loves her job. I don’t really understand this personally, but she does. She works in a school helping students with Special Educational Needs, so I understand that what she does gives her that warm glow of goodness. She is feeding the altruistic gene and more power to her. But I wonder, is she in the majority? Do most people feel like that in their job, or is it a means to an end? 

Work and jobs in particular have always been around, but it is the ethos of why we do them that I wish to explore. 

If we go back to 1904 and Martin Luther’s concept of the protestant work ethic, we can see the underlying starting point for the modern capitalist system: 

 Martin Luther, had reconceptualised worldly work as a duty which benefits both the individual and society as a whole. Thus, the Catholic idea of good works was transformed into an obligation to consistently work diligently as a sign of grace. 

Right, so working everyday and doing a job, benefits both the individual and society, that bit makes sense. Of course, this would be under the premise as free people and not slaves, we would be doing the jobs we want on a basis that suits the individual, who is deemed so important to Luther, right? Ah not so. Notice the language that has been used. ‘Transformed’ ‘obligation’ ‘consistently’ and ‘diligently.’ Suddenly the picture looks a little different.

The concept of work being a spiritually rewarding process, I can understand for sure. I mean it is part of human nature to want to strive to better oneself and improve the situation we found ourselves, and our communities in. But notice how the system of control (in this case, religion), has moved the goalposts for its own ends. Work isn’t now about you furthering yourself and your community. This is now about blackmail of the soul, to work diligently in an attempt to prove to God you are worthy of his rewards. 

Does this sound familiar? I forget the number of British people who feel aggrieved, horrified and shocked that Fundamentalist Muslims would give their lives to hurt the West and gain an entry ticket to paradise for their trouble. Seems like the Western work ethic was founded on a very similar premise. 

Another way of looking about how work and jobs, in the capitalist world came about, is to think of slavery. What is the quickest and easiest way to make a great deal of money in a short space of time? Augment your workforce and pay them very little. 

What Governments want to create is a global economy (which they have), where all the subjects are working for its interests; i.e. To make money for the corporations, that in turn run and fund said Governments. This is indeed similar to the system we have now.

The Guardian reports that the number of people earning the minimum wage has increased to 5.2 million, its highest ever point. So as we can see, the stats can be extremely subjective. For the right-wing (Dail Mail readership, Conservative, government ideology) Woo hoo! Loads of people in work look at us guys aren’t we a great, kind giving political power? Reality: The people employed are no doubt below the poverty line and struggling to make ends meet. Sorry to be a party-pooper. 

So to summise, the masses were tricked initially into work due to the promise and allure of religious sanctity. But as we know, this is not the case now. The Western World has become more secular and as such their evil plans to keep us enslaved and ensnared, must ultimately fail, right? Surely they cant have concocted another way  to keep us in our booths glued to our computers, taking one step closer to death every day? Sadly, they have. 

The failure of religion as a system of control, has brought about the rise of the technological age. Those who are not at church on a Sunday morning are instagramming, snapchatting or fraping, dreaming of a digital and visual world beyond their control; but not their desires. We are in an age where everything is at our fingertips and a world of magic and wonder is now within your grasp, or so it would appear. 

The Government now uses its two new henchmen, materialism and media to keep you further spellbound and in your place where you should be. New cars, homes, jackets, straighteners, Nike Air Max’s, compilation CDs, have taken the place of the old- school religious ‘grace.’ 

As our souls have been slowly ebbed away, the need for a spiritual goal has declined too. This has been replaced with instant gratification, where all of the above feature and all you have to do, is stay in bondage and await payday for your instant needs to be met. Thus the cycle continues of consumer, advertising and product and the general public remain in the cycle, thankful and grateful for our consumer goods etc. at the end of the month. 

But, its not all bad ,I hear you say. I like Nike trainers! Well, so do I. But at what cost? Because if you are happy staying impotent and powerless but looking cool, then it is not a problem. You will continue to do the same things, spend all your wages three weeks into the month and be hoping, praying even grateful for the next payday and thankful for the role of worker drone you have been given. 

The other cost of course, is that while you continue to buy the products and feed the machine, the fat cats at the top of the food chain are getting richer and richer and richer. In October 2014, there are 65 people who own over half of the world’s wealth. That’s right, so while you continue to be a cog in the machine, dreaming of the next promotion and the next Superdry jacket, remember, you will not ever be rich, comfortable, safe or happy. You are expendable to the system and when you have outlived your usefulness you will be cast aside, like the generations before you. I am not even going to touch upon the physical, spiritual and emotional cost to the workers used, to make the lovely new clothes we all run to buy when payday comes. 

So, what can we do? Well the first and most important thing we need to decide, is that do we want to live in enforced slavery? No matter how well they disguise and mask the truth, this is your reality. So take control and ownership of your life. If you feel that you are too exhausted or spend too much time on the train. Change it. If you worry that your life is passing you by, it probably is. Stop and get off, have a look around. Nurture your soul, what is the worst that can happen? You miss a mortgage payment maybe? Then what happens? You owe them money. Then what? They send the boys around. And then...?

Which brings me nicely onto part 2. Fear. 

Fuck foie gras

George Bernard Shaw stated, "the reasonable man looks at the world and sees how he can fit in with it. The unreasonable man looks at the world and sees how it can fit in with him. As such the world is changed by unreasonable men."
This is not verbatim but is a maxim that has resonated with me recently. I was discussing this with my wife who made the valid point that this is not always a good thing; Hitler for instance. I concurred. That being said, we learnt a frightful amount from the holocaust, which brings me to another Shaw quote - "All that we learn from history, is that we learn nothing from history." I would agree with this totally, we're it not for the actions of that vile, Austrian twerp.
My point for all this procrastinating is that I suppose I have an unreasonable request. I use the term 'suppose' because the life and world which I inhabit, it is far from unreasonable. However in the world outside my front door, the request is painfully, debilitatingly, falling on deaf ears.
So since the start of 2014, my wife and I have taken up pescetarianism. It's basically a halfway house between vegetarianism and eating the flesh of animals. Having been a meateater avidly for 32 years, it is difficult to go cold turkey. I don't believe many successful lifestyle changes derive from going cold turkey, the human brain clearly cannot cope. It prefers a slow burner, like a Springsteen ballad.
Anyhow, the point of this is not to convince the world to become veggie, the world is not ready for that. We SHOULD all be veggie and people are slowly coming around to this; numbers are growing rapidly by the year. But to ask the average man to throw down his meat and chips in the name of justice, progress or care, that is a bridge too far at this stage. I say this with previous, I have been an average man for all my years!
But surely, the world is ready to stop the production and sale of foie gras? Hundred percent, no strings attached, fucked off out of it.
No? Well why is that? Apathy, no doubt. Men and women in the western world are busy, I get that. Who knows how foie gras is made? Few. But if you did, you would boycott it. And if you don't, I worry for your soul.
Perhaps it's the posh connotation. We as Brits are fearful to retain our heritage and rightly so. Britain's demographic changes by the moment, so anything with a royal seal on it, i.e. A Fortnum and Mason Royal Warrant, must be ok, right?
So the way the world is in 2014, this is an unreasonable man granting an unreasonable request. Try and watch the video and then make your choice. Honestly, I have never watched it fully, I literally can't. If after seeing it you feel like I do and ghandi did and hundreds of thousands of enlightened souls are feeling, get on board.
And no I am not comparing myself to Ghandi. He had far better dress sense and could pull off flip flops like a champion.