Mmmm… question first, what do they fear. Then question what do they covet. Find this and know the nature of the man.

I adapt the tone a touch, what drives modern man is what they fear and what they covet.

Fear more than anything else. Fear drives most. Fear of loss, fear of the truth, fear of the other. How do you respond?
Well, if you have no fear and you do not covet, then one would possibly say that one is clear minded enough to start having a rational conversation.
With the notion that we all think we are having rational conversations but we are riddled with fear. So we are not. We imagine we would like to be, but we are not. In many ways, this is why people get that feeling that folks are not listening, that all of this is just opera. It’s a lot of singular arias screamed into the void.

Question: what do you fear?

Heights.
People with power.
I fear the extinction of bees.
I fear the end of our world.
And I fear that the reason why the night sky is so static and so dull is that no culture has survived their own folly. That the Fermi Paradox is true. That the universe is a dead sterile place with nothing in it because life defeats itself before it can succeed and make a breakthrough. And then I see it in my own species and I feel a little sad because of it.