The Left Hemisphere Makes You Afraid

The seven cardinal sins have shaken and shimmied ever since Evagrius—or maybe Origen, who knows—first jotted them down in some dusty desert hole. By the time Gregory the Great slapped his official stamp on the list, they’d already mutated like a bad batch of bathtub gin compared to the Hellenistic epoch's great catalogues of vice. Even now, the Catholics and the Orthodox don’t entirely agree on the lineup.

Me, I figure the Cardinal Sin League is overdue for an expansion, like when the NHL doubled down in ’67 to chase the sprawl of North America’s puck-hungry rubes. Time’s ripe for a postmodern update, a fresh draft of depravity to match our jittery, overclocked age.

My nominees? Noise—that relentless sonic sewage clogging our ears and minds. Rationalism—the cold, smug cult of the slide-rule brain. Hurriedness—the twitchy compulsion to outrun our own shadows. All of ‘em capital sins, in the old Latin sense: caput, the head, the fountainhead spewing tributaries of lesser mischief.

But there’s one expansion league member that could skate in and hoist the Cup in year one.

Fear.

The whole Judeo-Christian playbook’s lousy with admonitions against fear. From Stoics to the Sermon on the Mount, you hear the same refrain: “Fear not; don’t worry; be not anxious.” John Paul II hammered that “Be not afraid” line like a scratched LP. None of it took. Everyone is still scared s***less.

Why?

Because we’re a civilization of left-hemisphere junkies, strung out on the survivalist buzz of that predatory lobe.

How the Left Hemisphere Turns Us Into Cowards

The left hemisphere is the enforcer, the one handling the grubby details—hunting, hoarding, scheming, punching anything that moves. It’s got to be that way; it’s built to keep us from getting eaten. Trouble is, when it’s calling all the shots—unchecked by the right hemisphere’s big-picture mojo—it turns us into Grade-A bastards. Every left-hemisphere tyrant’s the same: a selfish prick fortifying his little fiefdom, stacking cannons, ready to blast anything that threatens his stash. More stash, more safety. More safety, more success.

It’s a feedback loop that leaves the amygdala (poor, dumb bastard) twitching like a strung-out meth head.

That little almond of gray matter, parked dead-center in your skull, is the early-warning system. Something pings it, it’s fight or flight. Real danger? Run like hell. Minor snag? Man up and deal.

But when the left hemisphere’s running the show, every damn thing’s a five-alarm fire. A late bill, a traffic jam, a dentist’s drill—they’re all threats to the left hemisphere's precious control, its almighty efficiency. So the amygdala freaks, blares the klaxon, and we bolt.

And that’s where the wheels really fly off. The more we run, the more the amygdala logs things as legit peril—etching them onto the neurological rap sheet. Next time the same trigger shows up, it screams louder, adds a few of the trigger’s associates to the watchlist—people, places, whatever. Pretty soon, you’ve got a web of dread so thick, Tolkien’s Shelob would envy it.

The New Sin on the Block

Pride’s always been the big daddy, the sin with the crown, strutting its stuff since its victory in the Garden of Eden. It’s the engine under every other vice’s hood.

But this new contender, fear, could knock it off the throne and claim the Grey Matter Cup.

Don’t call it heresy—Thomas Aquinas sniffed this out eight centuries back in De Malo. Fear, he said, is the grease that slicks every capital sin, pride included. Every vice is just us dodging suffering, sidestepping pain. Toothache? That’s not just a twinge—it’s a raid on the left hemisphere’s twin arsenals: time and cash. So it’s a thing to worry about. And off we go, spinning silk and venom, weaving a web to shield ourselves, only to end up tangled, stuck, and dang near catatonic in our own trap.

The left hemisphere is a spider gone rogue, choking on its own threads. It starts out building a fortress but ends up a prisoner: immobilized, institutionalized, drooling in a padded cell of its own frantic design.

Fear’s the rookie sin with veteran moves, and it’s skating circles around the old guard. Watch out, pride. It’s coming for your title.