Henry,
For this, my first letter to you, I am compelled to talk to you about fear. Why fear? Why would I choose to open this series of letters on a topic that is so negative and for many, debilitating? Because in writing this, I am recognizing just how much I have allowed fear to infect my own life. On a grander scale too, I think I can say with little reservation that fear is similarly infecting this country, and perhaps even this planet. However I am in no position to critique the action of our countrymen when my own has been so lacking, so in this my first letter, I want to have a meditation on my own fear with the hope that when you read this, you may be more able to control yours.
Why is fear such a dangerous and debilitating emotion? Because for the weak-minded (among whom I often feel as though I should include myself) it is all-encompassing. It takes root in the mind and, left unattended, germinates, and spreads like a virus. If allowed to spread unchecked, it will become all you feel, and in some cases, may evolve into anger and hate. That may be the worst-case, but even in the best cases, fear causes us to stress, negatively affects our integrations with the world, with those we love, and changes our own narrative about how the world works. Fear-based decisions are always the wrong decisions. As is said in the science fiction book Dune “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration…”[i]
To begin, however, I must dispense with the idea that I am telling you not to feel fear. Fear is an evolutionary advantage, passed to us from our earliest ancestors. If ancient man was hunting and came across a predator, the physiological symptoms of fear were intended to aid in his survival. Raised heart rate, hair standing up, muscles tensing, all were intended to ensure readiness to either flee or fight. This letter is not intended to convince to avoid fear. Rather, to show you than it is best to feel fear, but control it, harness it, and perhaps even use it to serve your needs. As the rest of the quote from Dune says “…. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”[ii]
The opposite of fear is the virtue of Courage but note I did not say courage is the lack of fear. Nor do I narrowly define courage as martial courage. While it is of course courageous to charge the enemy on the field of battle it is far from the only type of courage. Courage is right action despite the presence of fear. The Spartans, as many other cultures did, prized courage or andreia over all other virtues. They also, however, despised that false courage, that fanatic boldness that came from one who no longer felt fear and therefore recklessly courted death. That sort of faux courage, they called thrasytes and they considered it more vice than virtue. You should always seek courage, but not at the cost of reason.
Fear is the tool of evil. While in and of itself fear is not evil, it is by far the easiest emotion to manipulate for evil ends. I can think of not a single hate group that does not have as one of its core tenets a “fear of the other.” They may dress it up as some version of courage or righteousness, but scratch at the veneer even a bit and you can see the fear underneath. Fear is a great recruitment tool. It has the ability to convince people that the world is one way and anyone who disagrees is a threat. To quote Star Wars “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.” If I might add on to the words of Obi wan, only a Sith deals in absolutes uses fear to do so. It is therefore vital that you understand fear, you face it, you don’t hide it, but that you control it. And never allow others to control your fear for you.
Almost every major philosophy has a version of this idea; that one must control ones fear, rather than allowing it to control you. The book by C.S. Lewis The Screwtape letters is written from the point as a senior-level demon, advising his nephew, a junior demon, on how to corrupt “the patient” a Christian man. Screwtape says “We want (the patient) to be in the maximum uncertainty so that his mind will be filled with contradictory pictures of the future which arouses hope or fear.”
None of this would be particularly meaningful had I not been experiencing a version of fear in my own life over the last 6 months. I want to be clear that what I have been feeling is far from the acute terror that comes with a moment in time that shocks the senses. Mine has been a gnawing, subdued yet ever-present fear. I know I am not alone and anyone who has done any self-reflection during this time in our history would admit that he or she has felt it too. The question is not have I felt that fear. It is there, for many. The question is have I allowed it to change my life.
I doubt I am the guiltiest of this, but it has. Some of the fear-based changes are understandable and have minimal negative effects (if any). But I have let fear effect large portions of how I think. There have been whole evenings where while I could have been spent reading, exercising, or playing with you, I scrolled social media, looking to confirm my biases or seeking some undefinable comfort in the 140 characters of a stranger’s inner monologue. I have been grumpier, more sullen, and on several occasions, made excuses from lack of discipline using my suffering mental health. These may seem mostly like small things, but as I said before, I recognize them as being the first signs that fear is taking over my life, and if I am not careful, this is not where it will end.
It’s not only in the person that one can see fear manifesting. My friends and comminutes have all made decisions based on fear and panic. It is important to reiterate that I am not judging or even questioning the justification of that fear, but rather questioning the wisdom of making choices based on it, rather than based on logic. Any decision made based on fear in place of the reason is wrong. And though one may get a positive outcome to form a fear-based decision, that’s more a result of fate or external forces rather than the wisdom of the decision made.
So now to you. What is it I want you to take from this diatribe? First, fear is not inherently bad. First, feel your fear, don’t run from it or pretend it’s not real. Be familiar with the mental, physical and emotional signs that you are afraid and know when it begins, ends, and why. Once you feel it, step two to harnesses it. Remember that fear is the mental and emotional manifestation of the negative effects of that which has not yet happened, meaning you have not been harmed yet, you are merely anticipating the possibility. You can use fear to plan, to prepare, to assess. But step three is never to let the fear control you. Weigh your fears with probabilities, rational assessments, and with your objectives or the rewards. Anything worth doing or having taken either risk or sacrifice if not both. Risk and Sacrifice both should engender fear in you. Your job is to look at that fear, but also at the reward you are seeking after the sacrifice and decide if it is worth it. The worst thing you can do is avoid risk and sacrifice based on the fear you may lose.
In his book “The Wisdom of Psychopaths” Kevin Dutton explains that one of the hallmarks of a true clinical psychopath is fearlessness. They are simply missing the part of their brains that feels fear. They look at the situation as what it is, and considering fear is the anticipation of what hasn’t yet come, don’t feel it. There is something to learn from that because broadly speaking, psychopaths are (among other things) extremely cool under pressure and able to make choices based on reason alone (sometimes that reason is warped by other aspects of the psychopath’s psyche which is fodder for another letter entirely). Conversely, their lack of fear, makes many psychopaths reckless, foolish, and overly narcissistic.[iii]
The key then, as with so much of life, is balance. Fell your fear, enjoy the knowledge that by having it, you are human, (not a psychopath), and probably doing something with a high reward possibility. But remember that while fear is a good thing, it should never be what makes your decisions. Instead, it should only play a role, and a small one at that. I wonder how my last 6 months, and indeed the last 6 months of many people in the world today would look different had reason weighed more in their minds than fear.
[i] Frank Herbert and Brian Herbert, Dune, Ace premium edition, The Dune Chronicles (New York: Ace, 2010).
[ii] Herbert and Herbert.
[iii] Kevin Dutton, The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success (New York: Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013).