Miguel Ángel Fuentes – Our Fears

Our society is full of anxiety and fears: of death, illness,
hunger, famine, war, crime, unemployment, natural
disasters, failure, etc. An overlooked consequence of fear
is the feverish rhythm of our activities and thoughts, which
leaves the feeling that life is flying by, without time for
intellectual leisure, that is, to think and reflect. In fact, the
hyperactivism that characterizes modern man has its own
name: it is called “flight.” We escape from thinking about
eternity, the meaning of life and death, the mystery of pain,
our finiteness, God, our destiny after death, our mission in
the world. Our major occupations are often nothing more
than excuses for not thinking about what we are, and what
we will become, because these truths frighten us. We live
with fear; fear feeds many of our actions.

At each moment we are intimidated by having to think
about the meaning of what we are doing (because we are
so afraid to discover that, in reality, many of our concerns
are meaningless!). And yet, sooner or later we will have to
face this reality; hence we must learn to resolve our fears