The Nature of Fear
Last night, I came across this article by Tim Ferriss called Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide, which goes into the author’s experience with depression and his close encounter with taking his own life. I’m personally a big fan of the writer – he has a podcast called The Tim Ferriss Show which I’ve gained many insights from – so reading this article and imagining a world where he didn’t exist was unsettling.
I’d recommend reading the whole post, but there’s a moment that stuck out to me where Tim reflects on his experience, 16 years later:
“Now, at this point, some of you might also be thinking “That’s it?! A Princeton student was at risk of getting a bad grade? Boo-fuckin’-hoo, man. Give me a break…”
But… that’s the entire point. It’s easy to blow things out of proportion, to get lost in the story you tell yourself, and to think that your entire life hinges on one thing you’ll barely remember 5-10 years later. That seemingly all-important thing could be a bad grade, getting into college, a relationship, a divorce, getting fired, or just a bunch of hecklers on the Internet.”
Fear. A powerful, primitive and potentially pernicious emotion. Whilst undoubtedly necessary to our survival, in the modern age I sometimes wonder if evolution has done us a disfavour by ingraining such visceral responses of fear against uncertain times. In Tim’s case, fear drove him to a state where he seriously considered taking his own life, which was, as he admitted, an irrational decision. And given suicide is the one of the leading causes of death for young people, I doubt he’s alone in this experience. Hence, I decided to take some time to learn about fear in order to understand some of the ancient tendencies hidden within our biology.
Later that night, I was going over my Notion book highlights and came across this fantastic chapter in Life of Pi on the nature of fear. It comes at a time where Pi has been stranded on the lifeboat for a long time and is losing hope of ever being rescued. The following excerpt is a bit long, but I find it beautifully written and deeply profound so I’ll share it here to end.
“I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.
Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear.
Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.
The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”
For anyone reading that might be going through hardships, I’d just like to say: I want to see the gifts you have to offer the world. Speaking from personal experience, and from the testimony of others, this too shall pass – whatever it is. Stay strong and seek help if you require.