On Fear, Hope, and a Bleak Future
Fear: A Necessary Evil?
I would be lying to myself and millions of other people if I said that this year can only possibly get better. Clearly, the world as we know it is plunging into near madness; simply put, it is quite literally on fire. What were once implosions of irritable behavior towards the maltreatment of innocent people have now become angry outbursts of which could only add to our urgent desires for justice. Underneath all that anger however, we harbor one feeble yet dark emotion; a trembling deer caught in headlights called fear. Fear for what is happening, what is to come. Fear for ourselves, our families, our mental and emotional stability. Fear for the utter destruction of a civilization built by our ancestors, one that is currently resting on the brittle bedrock that was once unity.
I am so, so afraid. Words fail to truly express how terrified I am of the landslide of events that have taken place right before my very eyes. Little by little, I can feel myself tumble down with countless others into a downwards spiral of questions with no clear answers. I sometimes look up at the sky and ask God when it will all just end, or why we must be punished in this way. Moreover, I ponder on how my peers may be taking all of this, and it crushes my heart to see some of my closest friends feel helpless in the face of adversity. I then started to wonder what the feeling of fear was like for other people. I wondered if fear could be more than just an instinctive reaction to a potentially dangerous situation, if it can be considered as a necessary evil, if we could possibly live in a world with no fear.
From there, I decided that in order to bring light to this topic, I must hear what the community has to say. These are the honest-to-goodness stories of four anonymous individuals and their experiences with fear.
Their Stories
Jen, a stay-at-home mom.
“I don’t know why, but I remember it so well. It happened so fast. Nothing would have prepared me for the accident. All I was doing was sitting down and watching the news. From my peripheral vision, I see my daughter climbing onto the counter from the chair she was sitting on. I was exhausted from cleaning the house all day, so I kept my overacting motherly impulses to myself. Suddenly, I see her tumble onto the floor, and I immediately regret not picking her up and away from the counter. As I ran over to comfort my wailing baby, my jaw dropped: the decorative ashtray that was on the counter fell with her. To make matters worse, as I lifted my daughter away from the floor covered in pieces of glass, I saw her pinky finger fall off her hand. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even scream.
All I did was quickly pick up the severed finger, wrap a towel around her bleeding hand, and call for her yaya. I got into a taxi and called my husband about everything that happened. He’s an on-call doctor, so he was almost never at home. When I arrived at the hospital, her finger has already turned black and blue, and this only led me to yell in the middle of the hospital lobby for help. Once a doctor came to us, he said that the finger needed to be cut off. I was in complete disbelief, I refused to let her finger be removed. That was when I knew that I was more terrified than ever.
I absolutely knew that her friends and classmates at school would [make fun of her] for being a little different from them. Her, having only four fingers on her right hand? I was more than certain that she was going to be bullied endlessly. I could never forgive myself for being so neglectful. I absolutely knew she was going to be hurt just as much as when she held that sharp piece of glass in her hands. Thank God I decided not to let the doctor cut her finger off. The deformity on her hand forced her to be left-handed, but I couldn’t help but feel glad that she could live with the rest of her life with a nerve-wracking childhood story to tell and a complete set of fingers.
I’m not entirely sure how I got over it, to be honest. To this day, with her being a fully-grown adult now, I still am scared of her being bullied, whether it be a rude coworker or an annoying playmate. Funny, right?”
U.P., a pre-med student and part-time model.
“Growing up, I used to be deathly afraid of heights. It didn’t start out as a conscious phobia though. You know how when you’re a kid, the idea of rollercoasters and hot air balloons naturally excite you? That’s how I saw it. Somehow, the idea of getting my insides rearranged while I’m suspended in the air [exhilarates] me. I didn’t think about it much, it was just a natural subjective emotion that I felt towards extreme activities that I regularly saw in cartoons.
One day we went to a mall that had transparent steps. I was very young at the time and the sight of the [see-through] steps excited me. I rushed over and stared in awe at the ant-sized people in the levels below. As soon as I placed one foot on the transparent glass floor, I couldn’t breathe. This was the exact moment that I realized my fear of heights. I was so scared. My body tensed and it felt like an asthma attack was coming up. My sanity was completely unraveling at this point- what if the glass breaks and we all fall to our deaths? Too many people are walking on it, what if it collapses?
I went home that night confused and scared. Why do I feel this way? I watched too many cartoons to know that heights are a source of adrenaline-pumping adventure and [breathtaking] views. Heck, even the “promise land” is situated way above the clouds (Disclaimer: these are thoughts of 8-year-old me). After a few weeks, we went back to that mall. I realized that my fear was completely irrational. Heights are too wonderful and I was too naïve to be scared of it.
I stepped one foot first on the glass. Holding onto my mom for dear life, I got the courage to place the other foot too. Now that I had both feet planted on the glass, I took small baby steps. My heart was pounding [and] I was breathing so heavily. With every step, I could feel my fear creeping inside me — -threatening to consume every ounce of courage I had left. But with this fear, I gathered the strength I needed to overpower it. I started stomping on the glass, checking if it would break. Then I started jumping on it. I jumped all the way across it, without clinging onto anyone. I was scared beyond belief, but the innocence of my youth believed in the strength of courage.
That’s how I got over it: by facing it head-on. How I got over my fear of heights is how I faced my demons growing up. I face them head-on. Relying on my strength, trusting myself it would all turn out okay in the end. It usually does, but in the times [where] things do not turn out okay, I take the time to lick my wounds. Eventually, you’ll condition yourself to take everything standing up.”
Rhon, a senior high-school student living abroad.
“So, this was last year, [about] two years ago. My friends and I wanted to make a campfire and have smores at 3 AM during our sleepover. [We thought of where to set up camp, and] near my house was a collapsed house (as in full concrete!) so we informed the barangay and they said it was okay, so we made the fire and the smores! My cousin happened to visit earlier [during] the day and decided to join us too, and it also happened to be his birthday. [From there, we were having a good time!] It was creepy, but we loved it. Then, my friend — -a complete idiot, but I love him — -decided to light a stick on fire and do impressions from movies or whatever, then tossed it aside.
20 minutes later, we find out that he threw the stick at an old dead tree and it caught on fire! The roots and [the wooden frames below the concrete] were set ablaze too, and that was how a 14-foot fire caught the attention of the barangay at 4 in the morning. We then ran over to my house to get some water to put out the fire, but we were stopped by a guard who asked us where we were going (obviously to get water!). After we put the fire out, a staff member from the barangay literally called the barangay heads and the fire department knowing FULL well that the fire was already put out 15 minutes ago!! Anyway, we went back to the barangay hall to explain what happened and waited for my dad to bring us home. Apparently, the staff member got FIRED for ‘disturbing the peace’ because he went to all the houses in the area asking for water. I guess from there I learned to never ever light a fire near a tree. Or get a guy fired.”
Drake, a writer and photographer.
“I was a kid when it happened, around 10 years old. My family went on a trip to America, so naturally, we had to go to Planet Hollywood. At the time, I had a weird obsession with pressing the ‘OPEN’ buttons on any elevator I saw…I don’t know why, but I guess I just liked holding the door for everyone. I specifically remember going to one elevator at Planet Hollywood and just racing towards it. My family and grandparents were a bit far off behind me, so naturally, I wanted to be able to press the button first and enter and hold the door for them. I don’t even know why I wanted to do it.
So, the door opens, and inside was this [Hispanic] couple and another man. I was shocked, so I turned around to see if my family was behind me, but they were still pretty far away. In a panic, I got in the elevator and tried to hold the open button for them. [But I noticed] that the button was too hard to press; no matter how hard I pushed it, it wouldn’t [budge], so the door closed and I was stuck there with three foreign strangers.
The fear then started to really get me. As I saw the elevator doors shut the world out from me, leaving me alone without my family, I started to literally panic. I began to cry out of fear, and the couple was just staring at me in confusion and slight concern. They were trying to talk to me, but I could not understand a word they were saying since they were speaking in Spanish. This only led me to panic even more, because we were both lost in translation and I was in desperate need for the comfort of my mom. Then, irrational fears began to emerge; was I going to die? Where am I going to live now? Am I literally going to be a homeless boy in Las Vegas? Is this how my life ends?
I remember looking back in tears at the couple, who was still smiling awkwardly at me. When the elevator doors opened again, I ran out and just accepted the fact that I was homeless and that I would never see my family again. After that, I waited in front of the closed elevator for 15–20 minutes. I paced back and forth in the corridor past these stalls, pretending to look interested in the products displayed. While I tried to distract myself from my worries, I heard loud footsteps coming from the staircase. At the corner of my eye, I see my parents running towards me and yelling at me, asking where I was and why I disappeared. I don’t remember what happened after that, but we just walked back to our van in silence. None of us talked on the way back, and I was still crying. That was it.
How did I overcome it? I don’t think I did. I just remember a lot of crying, but I guess I learned to calm myself down whenever I feel scared by staying in one place. I don’t know. But that’s what I learned.”
Embracing the Unknown
While reading these compelling testimonies, I noticed that they all had certain differences. It goes without saying that everyone has different fears, as well as different ways of dealing with it. From childhood traumas to juvenile slip-ups, the stories of Jen, U.P., Rhon, and Drake all have an undeniable uniqueness to them. However, they all seemed to have but one similarity; these four people described their most terrifying experience in such vivid detail as if it had only occurred to them yesterday. They thoroughly believed the experience to be petrifying enough to remember for days or even years on end.
That does not mean they only remembered the trauma, however. At the end of each story, they all had at least a moment to realize that they had overcome that fear. They had hope; that small spark of determination and bravery to face the situation head-on and triumph. It was then I began to fully realize just how important fear is in our lives. Fear is not merely a survival tactic in avoiding dangerous situations, and it is most certainly not a display of weakness, because it is the next step to hope. I believe that the greatest of hope can only come from the biggest of fears. Rebecca Solnit’s essay Hope in the Dark perfectly explains the necessity of hope in trying times.
Solnit wrote Hope in the Dark in early 2003 to 2004, which was considered as a dark time for the United States, as it was the period where the war in Iraq was occurring. This only makes it timely, as this year is also an increasingly difficult time for everyone. She wrote, “It is important to say what hope is not: it is not the belief that everything was, is, or will be fine. The evidence is all around us of tremendous suffering and destruction. The hope I am interested in is about broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act. It is also not a sunny everything-is-getting-better narrative, though it may be a counter to the everything-is-getting-worse one.”
This creates a brand new perspective on hope. It should not be defined as the constant belief that everything will eventually fall into place and get better, because it may reach a point where those that struggle and desperately want hope will completely deny their fears and doubts and literally “fake it till” they “make it.” That is not where hope should come from. There needs to be a “coexistence between grief and hope,” as Solnit stated. That very statement only proves true that fear is a way to motivate hope. And not only fear — -anger, disgust, and many others too. Hope should not be an excuse to completely put aside the cruelties of the world — -or in some cases, a status update or hashtag for someone on social media to use and consider as a meaningful contribution to the world — -and live in blissful denial.
We need fear. We need to be able to feel and accept that uncomfortable weight sitting ever so slightly on our chests. And with issues threatening to take away the dignities of our human rights, we need it now more than ever, because from that fear will hope begin to arise, and from that hope will action begin to be taken. I suppose it really is impossible to live in a world without fear. Not only has it kept us alive for millennia, but it can also now be utilized for something much more than avoiding dangerous predators. Fear can create hope for a better future, which can be achieved through desires for change and doable actions that make meaningful contributions to solving the issues plaguing society to this day.
I’m certain that I’ve said my piece. Though I think that this paragraph from Hope in the Dark best concludes this article:
“Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes — you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists adopt the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It is the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand. We may not, in fact, know them afterwards either, but they matter all the same, and history is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone.”
Samantha Martija is a 16-year old Senior High School student, and contributor to the Of The People publication. If you’d like to have your work featured in our platform (whether visual or text), you may send in a submission to our email here.
