Fear

by Jay Paul 

From my youth, I recall a picture of a snow monkey from, I think, Life magazine. It was barely holding on to the edge of an icy cliff above a creek. The picture showed its front paws scraping into the ice and, more importantly, its terrified face. The eyes were wide and the mouth was tensely open—so human. Even as a boy, I recognized that its fear was similar to mine.

This shows that human fear is partly biological. Some profound, probably genetic reflex alerts us to when we are in danger and increases our heartbeat and helps us to look quickly for a way out. This is the familiar fight or flee response. With humans, this fear certainly kicks in when our physical body is endangered. Another type of fear may be a little more particular to humans. I am thinking of losing stature among fellows. I wouldn't be surprised if other social animals have similar fears, but there seems something particularly human about fearing the loss of respect from other people.

Then again, maybe I am just projecting my own insecurities onto the entire human race. I am, perhaps, acutely sensitive to others' opinion of me. I think this has always been true. It profoundly bothers me to think that someone thinks badly of me. Where this comes from, I don't know. I assume we all have it to a certain degree, but I think I have it more than some others.

The source of the fear is not difficult to discern. We are all intimately dependent on others for survival. Other people pick my food and transport it to where I can buy it and, ultimately, get my sustenance. Other people repair my apartment complex and keep my shelter up. Other people make my clothes and repair my car. A poor opinion of me by others may, on some level, threaten my food, shelter, clothing, and transportation.

While this is true, something else is at stake. Perhaps it's the fear of loneliness. In the past ten years, I have gone through a divorce, lost a good friend to a heart attack, had some good friends simply disappear on me (perhaps freaked out about my diagnosis), and so on. If I am honest about myself, I am afraid of being lonely. At times, I worry about my other friends dying. At times, I worry about my family dying. Of course, I will die at some point. But I think I fear loneliness more than I do death.

This is a strange thing to worry about right now, given that I have a lot of friends and organizations I am involved with. I am probably as far from loneliness as I have been since my divorce, ten years ago. Nonetheless, my greatest fear is being out in the cold, with no home, and nobody to call. 

Of course, this fear is unrealistic. I have family, friends, and organizations to help me. They wouldn't let me die of exposure, all alone. Where does this fear come from? Why do I have it? To what extent does it motivate my behavior?

Is my concern about what others think of me created by this vision of myself, all alone and without shelter? To some extent, it probably is. People don't help those they disdain or disrespect. So someone thinking poorly of me may excite this primal fear of loneliness and destitution. Yes, this unrealistic vision of my vulnerability may affect my behavior and the way I treat and respond to others. I may be overly concerned not to offend, even though, paradoxically, I have, earlier in my life, offended a lot of people because of my strong opinions. Back then, I felt more confident.

I want to end on a positive note. While I have some deep fears of loneliness and abandonment, and they do sometimes motivate me, I think most of the time I base my life on more practical, utilitarian needs. I don't think this fear rules me. I, like everyone, am complex, multifaceted, and certainly not centrally organized. This fear, no matter how deep, is not always with me. It comes and goes, depending on the circumstances I find myself in and how secure I feel.

While loneliness and abandonment are my deepest fears, they are rarely around. Most of the time, I go through my day focusing on the here and now and my idle thoughts about people and what I need to do. Fear of lost stature just comes and goes, like everything else. We are not defined by fears, unless we choose to be. We are defined by all sorts of things, and this definition is always morphing and shifting. Perhaps someday this deep fear will wither away and disappear. It may be replaced by another, or perhaps a spot of relaxation will open.

It does feel like losing some of my fears, no matter how unpleasant they may be, is to lose a part of myself. I am strangely attached to my misery. This is not unusual, and certainly doesn't make me unique. But it goes a long way to explain why unreasonable fears stick around. Perhaps I fear something more than loneliness: losing attachment to my deepest fear, thereby losing a part of my conception of self.