Pea-Sized

Floccinaucinihilipilification. 

A rather audacious attempt

to describe the futility

of considering yourself inconsequential

of being too small to make a difference.

Makes me wonder, 

have they never heard of the amygdala?

The amygdala is tiny.

Pea-sized.

Which feels irresponsible,

considering it governs

most of human civilisation.

A soft biological switch

deciding when your shoulders drop,

when your voice apologises,

when your life narrows

and you call it realism.

One pea.

Running households.

Running marriages.

Running economies.

Running entire bloodlines

on fear-based logic.

Families are built around it.

Fathers who shout

because fear learned to speak loudly.

Mothers who stay

because fear memorised endurance.

Children who behave

because fear works better

than affection.

No one calls it fear.

They call it values.

Relationships follow.

We marry not out of love,

but out of timing.

Out of panic.

Out of the terror

of being the last one left

at the table of normalcy.

We mistake fear for compatibility.

Silence for peace.

Longevity for success.

Divorce is feared

more than decay.

Loneliness more than dishonesty.

A bad marriage is more respectable

than an amicable exit.

You wake up every day

to a job you hate

because a pea

told you starvation

is more frightening

than disappearance.

This is not cowardice.

This is conditioning.

In this country and every other,

fear is not an emotion.

It’s inheritance.

Passed down with surnames,

family honour,

wedding invitations,

and the unspoken rule

that happiness is optional

but stability is mandatory.

Religion perfects it.

Politics weaponises it.

Corporations monetise it.

And most people never notice.

Because when fear is shared,

it feels like culture.

Society even sings songs

about fearlessness.

They sell it as strength.

As rebellion.

As leadership.

They put it in films and fairytales.

They applaud it on stages.

They quote it to others like them

right before asking permission

to breathe.

But fearlessness isn’t strength.

It’s damage.

Which brings me

rather reluctantly, 

to myself.

My amygdala doesn’t work right.

Not absent.

Not heroic.

Just dysfunctional.

Fear doesn’t arrive

where it’s meant to.

It doesn’t respect hierarchy.

It doesn’t flinch on cue.

So I don’t fear authority.

I don’t fear elders.

I don’t fear institutions

that depend on silence

to survive.

That’s not courage.

That’s a malfunction.

I am not aspirational.

I am not enlightened.

I am the unsafe variable

fear failed to train.

Families don’t know

what to do with people like me.

Relationships exhaust themselves

trying to teach me caution.

Institutions label me unstable

because I don’t confuse survival

with loyalty.

Society loves fearless men

as long as they’re fictional,

historical,

or dead.

Living fearlessness?

That’s called deranged.

So yes.

Something is wrong with me.

In fact, a lot is wrong with me.

My amygdala doesn’t ring the bell

that tells you to kneel,

to settle,

to stay.

I don’t feel the fear

that keeps families intact,

marriages tolerable,

jobs respectable,

and lives, socially acceptable.

That doesn’t make me free.

It makes me dangerous, 

like a ticking time bomb.

Fear isn’t just an emotion.

It’s the leash.

And I am a rabid mad dog.

So, don’t romanticise this.

I am not the anomaly.

I am not the exception. 

I am the fallacy.

I am the malfunction

that proves how much of your life

runs on panic

pretending to be purpose.

If fear makes you human,

then you are perfectly assembled.

Me?

I’m what happens

when the glue fails,

the alarm stays silent,

and a pea-sized organ

forgets to tell a man

to be afraid.

I am the fabric nightmares are made of.