The majority of "evil" -- or just nastiness -- I think is less due to malice, hate, or cruelty.
I think the majority of bad things people do happen because they're (1) afraid, and (2) they take the expedient course.
Fear is a mess, of course. Scared people do all kinds of idiot moves.
(Which isn't to say that fear is irrational. Maybe the fear is justified. But scared people do stupid and crazy things.)
But fear... fear is probably okay, even. If you work through it. If you understand it. If you take time and work at it.
The nasty thing is when you're scared and you take the expedient path -- whatever the easy play is, whatever the first thing that springs to mind is. That's when people do quite a lot of damage -- when they're scared, and take the easiest, most expedient path towards feeling less afraid.
Very few people make decisions on pure principal. Even if they know something is right, or wrong, they say things like "well, I pick and choose my battles" or "I've got to do the sensible thing."
Well.
There's something to that, sure. But I rarely hear people say, "I'm scared and just back down from doing what I really feel I should do because of fear."
I never hear that, ever, but surely some people are stepping back out of fear. They comfort themselves by saying that they're reasonable people who pick and choose.
Maybe that's true. It's worth double-checking yourself when you start saying stuff like that though - could it possibly, maybe, just be fear?
I finished reading Steven Pressfield’s The War Of Art yesterday. It was easily the most valuable book I’ve read this year. If producing any form of creative work is important to you I’d highly recommend you get a hold of a copy. In the meantime, however, here are some key takeaways.
“Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.”
Pretty self-explanatory. Whatever scares you the most is probably the most important thing for you to face.
“Resistance is fear. But Resistance is too cunning to show itself naked in this form. Why? Because if Resistance lets us see clearly that our own fear is preventing us from doing our work we may feel shame at this. And shame may drive us to act in the face of fear.”
