Fiddlesticks

Compared to hunter-gatherer societies, agrarian societies are significantly safer. Predation in the wild, the possibility of injury or starvation are all dramatically reduced, leading to longer lives and quieter nights. No more must a hunter fear the wolf when he can build a fence around his fields.

However, some have posited that there is a certain 'conservation of emotion' in the world--for one person to be more happy, another must be more sad, and so forth. If this is true, what of the hunter's fear? Such emotion cannot simply disappear from the world; fences cannot keep out the darkness of one's mind.

Perhaps, instead, safety does not decrease fear. Rather than be comforted that the wolves are outside the fence, the mind imagines new predators within the cropfields. And if a delusion is shared widely enough...perhaps it is no longer a delusion.

Credit: AliceGold https://www.deviantart.com/alicegold/art/Fiddlesticks-515495277