Original Sin - A Caveman Fear
It might have been a fear game with Flog, but with Og it wasn't a game.
Is this how the Fear Game Began?
Welcome to Original Sin - A Caveman Fear.
A long while ago in a land far away there was a caveman named Og. Og was an average sort of caveman who lived with an extended family group. It was the norm. The leader of the band was a big, hairy brute of a caveman named Flog. Dreadful man!
Og fancied Mog but was afraid of Flog.
Now Og was a young fellow and sort of felt quite frisky from time to time. Hormones, you know. He was making eyes at Mog. Trouble was, Flog knew this, aand Flog didn’t like it. As CEO Cavemen, all the women were his; as was the first choice of meat when they brought home Mammoth steaks. Or, for that matter, Flog always took the best of everything: the best place to sit in the cave near the fire, the cosiest place to snuggle up to sleep and, of course....Mog...and the other ladies. It paid to be big and strong.
Original Sin - A Caveman Fear.
Og lived in great fear of Flog. Then again, so did all the others in their little band. Fear was the dominating factor. Then Og got cunning. He made a big, heavy club and waited for Flog to sleep. Then he beat Flog on the head a number of times and that was the end of poor old Flog. He was dead. Og was king.
It seemed there were enemies everywhere.
Og became paranoid. There were enemies everywhere.
Now, Og no longer feared Flog. But fear came to him right enough. He knew that what he’d done to Flog could be done to him. Someone could use a big club to do him in. So he had to be wary. He made himself an even bigger club. Fear continued. In fact Og became quite paranoid; everyone was out to get him.
Surely this new groups would take their food supply.
It was around this time that our little band became aware that another tribe was moving in on Og and his band’s territory. This new group would surely take their food supply. (Fear) Mammoths were getting harder to find every day. So Og and his group decided they’d drive out the intruders. However, on reconoitering the interlopers, they realized that they, too, were armed with clubs – big clubs.
Along came a superior weapon.
No matter, they would attack them by stealth.
No, matter, they would attack them by stealth, and kill them when they lay asleeping. And this is what they did. Well, most of them. Some escaped. That was bad. Because now the group had enemies and enemies are to be feared even worse than peopple just taking your tucker.
No matter, one of their group, a very creative young man named, Gog, had invented a new weapon called a ‘spear.’ You simply jabbed it into an enemy’s vital parts and he or she was dead.
The Professional Man-at-Arms had arrived.
Original Sin - A Caveman Fear.
So for a short while Og’s group had the upper hand. Og was now beyond his prime. He was killed off and superseded by Bog who, later, was assassinated by Wog, who left his legacy to his elder boy, Rog. The fear was also handed down.
Meanwhile, back on the other side of the ravine, their enemies had come up with a dastardly weapon: the ‘bow and arrow.’ It was even superior to the spear. Shields, of course, had now come into being, as had body armour. Next came metals of bronze, then iron, then steel. Things were moving along as each tribe ( and they were tribes by then and there were many of them. All were all affearful of one another) built bigger and better weapons: battle axes, lances, swords, daggers, maces, cross-bows. These they augmented with fortresses and castles. Boiling oil and catapults came into being. Hoever, it seemed they’d reached the end of the road weapon-wise.
Castles, fortresses and fortifications - All part of the Fear Game.
By now a new breed of man had arrived on the scene: the professional ‘man-at-arms,’ the trained soldier. Around the soldier also sprang up a belief that he was a great asset to have on one’s side. If anyhone was a hero, it was the solider...or, later, the sailor on the ship of war. To him went great acclaim, for he could ameliorate the fear of those who could stay at home. The fear of shame of not being one of the tribe’s warriors was gone.
Then some idiot invented gunpowder and all of the earlier inventions became obsolete. Cannons, canonades, Howwitzers and – oh, no! Rockets! Huge wars were now being fought out of fear of losing territory, or not gaining territory. It was all very fearful. The fear of embarrasment in the mind’s of army generals kept millions in muddy trenches. Such is the foolishness of humankind. The fear of backing down was lauded as courage.
The War to End All Wars. Was anyone really listening?
Original Sin - A Caveman Fear.
Worse, now there were machines that could fly in the air and kill people – fear! Better build more bigger and better planes to get ahead of the enemy. If we don’t do it they will.
Not to be outshown, someone invented a huge explosive device that would kill a hundred or so thousand enemies at a time. After all, the descendents of Og didn’t want to be taken over.
In the Fear Game is this the crowing glory. Og would have loved such a big club.
Make no mistake about it - most of our decisions are really reactions based in fear.
And so it went on. Fear the impetus, as bigger and better and more destructive weapons were invented and deployed. Aeroplanes gave way to space platforms that could launch attacks on millions of people all over the world. Oh, and by now many, many people were quite happy about this because they were making a really wonderful livelihood out of all of the fear. “All we have to fear is fear itself” had not registered.
Will the Internet and those using it change the world?
Then came the Internet. Well... What would happen now? Would it be another weapon...or would it be the end of weapons...and perhaps the end of fear of one another. Afterall Og’s descendents were talking with so many now. They could even see their faces on Skype. No, those people didn’t look like they needed to be feared. But one never knew...
Yes, what would the future hold?
