Fear
I can sense it lurking just out of sight. As if turning my head quickly enough would allow me to catch a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye. It stalks me like some dark reflection of myself, some beast that I’m both intimately familiar with but whose form is constantly in flux.
My fears are always with me.
The things we fear can be difficult to face and even more difficult to name. So often the object of our fear is really just the face of a much deeper fear. I’m not talking about phobias, but the deep seated fear that keeps you up at night. A reality we wish to avoid at all costs, so we distract ourselves with more pleasant thoughts, with busyness or hedonistic pleasure. All in a vain struggle to gain some measure of control over what frightens us.
“What are you afraid of?”
Despite its banality, this question is a critical question to ask ourselves, especially given the constant fear-mongering in Western culture. Part of fear’s power comes from the way it prompts our imaginations to play out possible scenarios that are both somehow specific but also vague.
I recall a recurring nightmare from my childhood where I would wake up in my bed which had somehow been transported onto a busy early 20th century European train station platform. Crowds of people continuously pressed around my bed jostling each other in a rush to get by, but no one noticed me.
Nothing about that dream in itself frightened me. I’m not afraid of trains or crowds. But fear isn’t strictly rational.
Fear is evocative.
It resonates with some partially submerged part of ourselves.
Thus the question: What is the source of our fear? What lies beneath the gut-response?
As important as acknowledging and naming our fears can be, an even more vital question to ask might be:
Why does this particular thing frighten me?
This question can unmask our true fears because it invites us to contemplate a possible future in which our fears are realized. If the thing I’m afraid of happens, will I still be afraid? If so, of what? And why?
Our fears can also reveal values we hold but fail to recognize. Are we afraid of strangers in our communities because maybe, we only really care about ourselves, despite what we might claim? Or afraid of failure, because engrained in us is the belief that those who don’t succeed are truly worthless? Do fear because we believe humanity at its core is more fundamentally evil than good? More made in the image of Satan than the image of God?
I don’t know if it’s possible to conquer fear entirely; but there is something powerful and liberating about knowing specifically what frightens you and why. Control may always be illusive, but a degree of clarity is not.
Our fears may always be with us, but we can be more than the sum of what frightens us.
