Ryan’s Journal: Fear As A Culture
by Ryan PewThis week has been an interesting confluence of events across the world stage.
Uber continues to be in the news, this time they decided to fire the head engineer, Anthony Levandowski, who is at the heart of the lawsuit with Google.
The US is on the verge of leaving the Paris Accord, something that could quite possibly have a generational effect.
Suicide bombs continue to tear apart lives across the globe.
What is at the root of these three things?
I believe it is fear.
They say the coward dies a thousand tiny deaths, but a brave person dies one glorious death.
I can tell you right now these are cowardly acts.
To begin, Uber is in the fight for its life. They are losing money every day with their current model. They are betting big on automation and have come up against Google over perceived theft of proprietary documents.
If they lose this they could be done. When you step back and look at the ride sharing model, it’s needed but it’s not unique. The barriers to entry are low and there is no differentiation of product from one company to the next.
They need to lead the space in automation because it’s the future and is inevitable. Fear has led them to both hire and fire the engineer at the center of it all. Perhaps they believe this will help their case, time will tell.
The US leaving the Paris Accord is monumental. I am not a scientist, but I can say this: I inherently know that pumping carbon emissions into the air is bad. Add to that the science that supports it and you begin to see the need to somehow influence climate change for the better.
Why would a president risk the lives of future generations so that a few energy companies can prosper?
Fear. Fear has gripped the voters in the first place who chose not to better their lives through education, which would enable them to better their lives.
Fear is in the president’s heart as well to think that climate change is not real.
Finally it brings us to terror.
These plots are designed to disrupt and bring fear to the masses. It is sometimes effective and can have lasting implications.
How do we combat fear?
One way is by seizing the courage to move one step forward at a time. Embrace the fear and look st how destructive it can be and then make a move against it.
That could be helping someone that isn’t like yourself. Learning about a new culture. Perhaps even sitting down to talk with someone on a different political aisle then yourself to learn why they believe the way they do.
It starts with believing people have value regardless of position and then embracing them.
Perhaps that’s too simplistic, but I know in my own life it has worked and is scalable.
Image credit: Pati Morris