WorldWide Drilling Resource®

The Un-Comfort Zone II by Robert Evans Wilson, Jr. FEAR: Lifesaver or Manipulator I was shocked to see I had to walk through a maze of stacked pallets to enter the store. Then I saw a man spray- ing the shopping carts with some chemical, and I felt a chill run down my spine. Once I got inside, I noticed almost everyone was wearing surgical masks and rubber gloves. It was really creepy; and I felt like I was naked. I noticed peo- ple were avoiding eye contact and some even averted their faces when I looked toward them. I wondered if it was because I wasn’t wearing mask and gloves. At one point, I cleared my throat and a woman near me jumped away. The sight of all those masks and gloves was making me afraid. I found I was only taking shallow breaths in the hopes I wasn’t inhaling contaminants. I was scared to touch anything with my bare hands, and only selected goods further back on the shelves where hopefully no one had touched them. In my car, I slathered my hands liberally with an alcohol-based sanitizer. On the drive home, the radio blared warnings of virus deaths soaring, pandemic, body counts rising, hospitals overflowing, quarantine, essential business only, lockdown, worse than the plague, shelter-in-place, all parks and recreation areas closed . . . STAY HOME. When I got home, I sprayed all my purchases with disinfectant and wiped them down thoroughly. Once that was done, I relaxed, and felt the fear that had been building up inside me subside, a little. Then I turned the TV to a news channel and watched: New York City seems like a war zone, Central Park turned into an emer- gency hospital, refrigerated trucks storing heaps of dead bodies, mass graves being dug by bulldozers, and nurses quitting their jobs because of mask shortages. I started to feel a paralyzing panic set in. As I recognized the fear taking over my mind, I paused, and remembered I am the one who ultimately controls my emotions. I thought, “Wow, if I’m feeling this much fear, then it could be that I’m being manipulated. It’s time to see what’s true and what’s not.” I started doing some research and thinking critically. Fear is our most powerful emotion and the one that motivates us the most. It is a survival mechanism - dating back to our caveman days - an instinctual reaction that helps us stay healthy and alive. If we survive a bad experience, we never forget how to avoid it in the future. Some of our oldest and most vivid memories are born in fear. It’s adrenaline that etch- es them into our brains. Nothing makes us more uncomfort- able than fear. We have so many fears: pain, disease, injury, loss, failure, abandonment, crime, and so on. According to Clifford Nass, a professor of communication at Stanford University, “We get scared because of what we imagine could happen. Some neuroscientists claim that humans are the most fearful creatures on the planet because of our ability to learn, think, and create fear in our minds.” Once you have become frightened, everything seems scarier, and your fear response becomes amplified. It’s called potenti- ation when your fear becomes intensified and you react more powerfully. For example, if you are already afraid of snakes, and you see one, you might jump back and scream - even if it’s a harmless garter snake. Fear invokes the flight or fight syndrome; and our first reaction is to flee back to our comfort zone. If we don’t know the way back, we are likely to follow whoever shows us a path. The nature of fear makes us manipulable. I have heard the media referred to as Fear Porn. Media must sell advertising to stay in business; to sell advertising it must attract an audience; to attract an audience it must offer interesting news. The type of news that attracts the most people is negative; and negative news in- spiring fear, attracts New & Used Bits, HDD Bits & Tools, Drag Bits & Wings, Bolt-On Drag Bits, Reverse Circulation Tools, Hole Openers, Claw Bits, Stabilizers, Subs, Custom Tooling & Welding, Hammer Bits, Drill Collars, Pipe Wipers, and Drill Pipe. Office: (661) 834-4348 Rod Henderson / Eran Henderson 661-201-6259 • 661-330-0790 sales@bitcobits.com www.bitcoinc.us 22 JULY 2020 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® Wilson cont’d on page 38.