In praise of fear
Martin Luther King said: “One day fear knocked on the door. Courage went to open and found no one. ” Yep, that’s right. The human soul, our entire lives to tell the truth, waver in this eternal alternation between fear and courage. We would be mistakenly led to think that one excludes the other and that therefore, when one is present, the other is absent. But that’s not exactly the case. The truth is that the bravest people I know are filled with fear. Fear helps to live. Fear helps you survive. If tomorrow a pill would make the feeling of fear disappear from the human soul, we would end up crushed under a car after five minutes of leaving the house … Maybe we would do it with a smile on our face in total unconsciousness, but a bad end would always await us. So let’s re-evaluate this fear.
Fear is therefore a vital lens, absolutely important in some phases of our existence and which helps us to decipher it better. A lens that we cannot do without. For years we have despised this fear by throwing senseless messages like “no fear” or similar nonsense. But what the hell does that mean? How can we even imagine some form of fearless existence?
Fear is a fundamental component of ours, which forges us. He continually gives us advice (not always requested) and sometimes he gets it right, sometimes not. She is not a friend, for heaven’s sake, but not even an impostor to whom you never give even a penny of credit. Like salt, like sugar, fear can give more meaning to our actions but, just like the two ingredients mentioned above, it must be taken sparingly and in the right measure.
Accept it
How? First of all by accepting it. I used to write that phrases like “no fear” are great bullshit for me. And I confirm it. There is fear, there has been and always will be in human things. And if you who are reading these words also feel you are afraid, big or small, remember that .. it is absolutely normal, and this does not qualify you for better or worse than others. Admitting fear therefore should not be seen as a sign of weakness but as an exercise in realism. But not only. The moment we “admit” and “accept” our fears we have taken one more step towards greater knowledge of ourselves and, more importantly, we are starting to drain this fear.
The ancients used to say that the “anticipated lightning bolt” (the arrow seen before) hurts less when it hits us. And so it works with fear too. The moment we know it, the moment we (even) embrace it, we are helping it to self-dry. And we live better. I am reminded of the comparison of the boat and the stormy sea: if in front of waves 10 meters high you tie your boat with the anchor, the storm will slap you, and perhaps it will end up destroying your boat. If, on the other hand, you pull up the anchor and simply stay there riding the waves, perhaps you will vomit for too many ups and downs, but you will limit the damage. In the face of fear, in the face of the waves that sometimes seem to upset our lives we just have to be patient, understand the moment, accept it and float waiting for the worst to pass. And it will pass. Because, we know it but sometimes we forget it, sooner or later all the waves get tired … the fear disappears. And the sun returns.
