What An Episode Of Twilight Zone Taught Me About Fear

In the first season of the original Twilight Zone,

There was an episode called The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.

The story opens on a calm,

Tree-lined street full of children playing and adults talking.

There's a genuine feeling of community.

Suddenly a shadow passes over,

There's a roar and a flash of light.

Everyone notices,

They assume that it's a meteor,

And they go back to washing their cars and tending their gardens.

But then the residents discover that the electrical power has shut off and their phones no longer work.

They gather in the street to discuss the situation.

On their faces we see different degrees of concern.

They conclude the power outage has something to do with the meteor,

And right about then a young teenage boy interrupts.

The boy says this is just like stories he's read about space aliens.

The adults thank him and they go back to deciding what to do next,

But the boy interrupts again.

He says in the stories there's always aliens posing as a family of humans,

But they are actually part of the invasion.

This gets the attention of the adults.

They begin to look at each other with mild suspicion.

Then unexplainable things start to happen.

A car suddenly starts up and then shuts down on its own.

One house on the block.

The lights turn on and then off.

Fear now erupts in accusations,

One neighbor against another.

It's not long before one of the neighbors,

Thinking it's a monster approaching,

Shoots and kills the elderly man who lives next door.

By the final scene the neighbors have become a mob,

Smashing windows and taking up weapons against each other.

It's an all out riot.

The view cuts away to a high overhead shot of Maple Street and continues to pull back to reveal the crew of an alien spaceship watching the riot while using a device to manipulate the neighborhood's power.

The space invader in charge says all you have to do to make humans fearful is alter what's normal and that will always make them turn on each other.

This,

Says the elder alien,

Will be their strategy to conquering Earth one neighborhood at a time.

The voice of Rod Serling,

The writer and narrator,

Comes up at this point.

He says the tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions.

There are weapons that are simply thoughts,

Attitudes,

Prejudices.

He concludes by saying prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy and a thoughtless,

Frightened search for a scapegoat is a lethal poison for the children and the children yet unborn.

We're living in really challenging times right now.

We're bombarded with the sights and sounds of thoughtless,

Frightened people searching for scapegoats.

If I were to revise Rod Serling's statement,

I'd put the word frightened before the word thoughtless because fear restricts our ability to think clearly.

And when we can't think clearly,

Then the glue that holds us together as a nation or a neighborhood comes undone.

What is fear?

Fear is a physical reaction to a thought.

Fear is what happens when we think something bad is about to happen.

Fear is our body reacting to the belief,

I can see the future and I'm going to be feeling pain.

Now fear is an important emotion.

It helps to keep us alive in an emergency.

But fear is an emotion that does not come with a dimmer switch.

It is either full on or full off.

It makes us want to run or it makes us want to fight.

What fear does not do is suggest we sit down and calmly explore the facts of the so-called emergency so that we can make reasonable decisions about what to do.

When fear barges in,

Our rational thinking takes a backseat to our survival instinct.

Our ability to understand subtle differences collapses.

We are quick to accept lies and simplistic explanations that distort the truth.

What is fact and what is not lose importance.

We become like the good neighbors on Maple Street ready to attack anyone who seems,

Well,

Different.

Human beings are fascinating creatures.

We are given a brain,

A beautiful complex organ that can accomplish so much.

How is it that one person can use their brain to create amazing things,

Things that bring joy and comfort to millions of other human beings,

While at the same time the brain of another person can arrange information into a belief that will convince him to slaughter innocent people because it seems like a good idea?

How can this be?

Here's a short answer.

We all experience the world through a different set of filters,

One-of-a-kind perceptual filters created in childhood.

Throughout our life,

It's our perceptual filters that give meaning to every experience we have.

If we're aware of this,

Then anytime something happens and we feel bad,

We know the feeling is coming from inside us.

It's our thoughts that are creating what we're feeling.

If we know nothing about perceptual filters,

And most people don't,

We will probably blame the event or the other person for how we feel.

And if we are feeling fear,

Then our reaction can be especially vicious.

Around the world,

We are witnessing the vicious coming apart of countries.

Space Invaders on Maple Street is playing out in reality,

But instead of space invaders,

It's countries employing internet hackers who are planting the seeds of fear.

This fear is exploited by self-serving,

Power-hungry politicians.

Every day,

These so-called leaders maintain power by creating division among the people they are supposedly serving.

It doesn't matter the country or the language,

The method is the same.

Remind everyone repeatedly to be afraid,

And remind them repeatedly who to be afraid of.

And as it is so beautifully portrayed in the Twilight Zone episode,

When a country or a community succumb to fear,

People turn on each other,

And the collective good that happens when citizens work together vanishes.

And when people let fear run their lives,

They indulge in lazy thinking that just reinforces their fear.

They view complex events as conspiracies,

While the real problems affecting all of them get lost in a drama,

Get lost in an outrageous tweet that gets more attention than the appointment of another corrupt government official,

Or the arrest of a scapegoat drowns out the fact that there are children who go to sleep hungry.

Any nation that is divided accomplishes little.

If you have change in your pocket or bills in your wallet,

Take a look.

You'll find an important truth inscribed on those bills and coins.

It's a truth you won't find on your Visa credit card.

The brilliant minds who created the United States knew this truth and decided to put this motto on lots of things,

Kind of like the way we use refrigerator magnets with affirmations written on them nowadays.

The motto is E Pluribus Unum,

Which means,

Out of many,

One.

I wish I could say I'm immune to fear,

But I'm not.

When I do find myself with fear,

I have to pause,

Breathe,

And give my rational brain a chance to catch up.

Honestly,

I have to work on this almost every day.

I understand on a cellular level why the phrase,

Be not afraid,

Is the one most repeated in the New Testament.

When I'm swept up in my fear,

I must remember I have a choice.

I can take the easy,

Thoughtless route,

I can put on a hat and grab a sign and join a crowd of people pointing their fingers and blaming a scapegoat,

Or I can do the work to get over my fear and unite with my neighbors to help fix the problems affecting us all.

If you find yourself in fear,

And if it's affecting who you choose to lead in your community or your country,

It's my prayer that you pause,

Give your rational mind a chance to catch up,

Move past your fear,

And make wise choices.

It's my prayer that if you find yourself in fear,

You pause when the temptation to attack another person overwhelms your desire to treat them with love and respect.

Thank you for listening.

Peace,

God bless,

And remember to vote.