Hello Reader,
Got fear?
Never have I been a stressed entrepreneur, never have I looked like that wide-eyed cartoon fellow in bed on those late night commercials: Debts keeping you awake at night?
The most I knew of fear, as an older civilian, was being a student: Term papers coming due and final exams looming, during a time when, back before I had learned to do all my schoolwork on campus, I might find myself, while at home, walking through molasses like the soldiers in Rudyard Kiplings poem who were temporarily sheltered behind a hill: (from memory)
And now the hugely bullets,
Come pecking through the dust,
And no one wants to face them,
But every body must,
So like a man in irons,
Who doesn’t want to go,
They move them off by companies,
Uncommon stiff and slow.
As a civilian, even when doing public speaking, I would guess I was not so much afraid as very anxious. I can say this because earlier still, as a soldier, I was partnered with the real thing: Mr. Fear. He wears a black robe with a hood… During World War II an officer who served almost alone behind enemy lines in the jungle—while his father, a senior officer, was a Prisoner Of War of the Japanese—reflected on why his army training had been so scary. Simple: So that when you are in combat, the intense feelings will be familiar, rather than a complete surprise. Incidentally, he survived the war, and then found that his father, who used to bizarrely disrespect him, had to stop doing so.
By the way, my army buddies were not like Ernest Hemingway: We thought Earnest was a tad unreal. And hey, I fished in Hemingway’s river, in Europe! (We were forbidden to use our leave to go fishing back in North America, for obvious reasons)
I see I’m avoiding, looping around the topic of fear, like roaring PT boats on a looping approach to a battleship: (with a complete circle near the end) Forgive me, for as a true product of our society, this topic isn’t easy for me to come at directly.
Years ago, standing in a campus library, too busy to sign the book out, I once opened the Pulitzer Prize winning book Tales of the South Pacific. I found, I imperfectly recall, a scene on the beach, in broad daylight, with young men who crew Patrol Torpedo boats.
The young men—boys to us oldsters—are going out at night into harms way, crewing boats where the hull was not naval armour-grade steel, nor simple freighter steel, but only wood—nothing to protect them but their speed, using motors that run on extremely flammable aviation fuel. On the beach, a much older man, a respected construction worker, keeps saying how he wouldn’t like to be going out in those flimsy boats, not him, too scary, “you guys are crazy.” The young men don’t get angry—of course not. They laugh, and laugh hysterically, and bring him lots of beer. Because he is saying what society cannot say, what they cannot say. For they are young and life is sweet, but the night sea is vast.
What I want to say, however hard to admit, is this: Fear exists, and it has an effect.
(For me, as a high metabolism skinny artistic guy, I know fear makes my brain confused—Hence the armed forces use highly repetitive training—not at all boring, not when you realize the alternative)
I say this because as a society we don’t understand fear—we minimize it. But we shouldn’t.
In denying fear, we may also minimize lesser things like anxiety.
I was standing in a “special needs” home one Saturday, on a day when I was not working there; I had merely popped in for some reason. Virginia was an experienced worker at the home. That day she wanted to get her difficult client the heck out of the house, but—to where? She was stuck as to where he could safely go. So I suggested an appropriate idea. Then another. And another. Abruptly, poor Virginia looked so despairing, saying that I could come up with ideas, but she couldn’t. I remonstrated with her: “Vir-gin-ia, it’s not my shift! My brain is not squished down with responsibility like yours is.”
I have no shame in saying “stress” or “pressure” or “discomfort” or “squished” when that is more helpful to my listener than saying “fear,” a word our society is just not ready for. But once I connect my “pressure” to, er, my “functioning level” at sports or work or everyday living, then I am able to cope much better. (Such as when taking penalty shots) As a manager I keep fear in mind. As a chairman in a big meeting, I will keep scanning the group for anxiety and fear—realizing that surely the group is not as conscious as I am, surely no one is going to say the F-word—and then I will take whatever measures are needed. (If only the group’s tasks were easy, then someone else could be the chairman)
Back in college, I learned how to chair from My College Mentor (archived January 2019) And in college theatre class, we learned what it felt like to be relaxed on stage. How? By truly tensing our muscles to discern what the opposite of relaxation felt like. Of course, learning about the world’s stage, and gaining wisdom, is a process that takes time. My essay today is to remind myself and my readers that coming to appreciate fear is a process. I trust Virginia is more aware now.
This poem is when the narrator, who has joined up with his sisters, Janet and Susan, is commenting on life in the shadow of the Martians.
After the Martians Used Alien Warfare
Black Smoke,
left a dead and desolate land.
When Martian missiles arced overhead,
the birds were the first to fall.
Near the end,
the Martians had worked in the next valley.
At night we had often seen a fearsome glow.
One evening I saw their machines prowling on the ridgeline.
We lived in fear.
Death has passed us.
Now we putter around the old farmhouse.
In the drizzle this is truly November country,
leafless trees all wet and grey and black,
ground all wet and muddy with dead grass.
I’m cold and glum.
My soul is chill.
Janet’s lungs are wet,
and she sees glints like phantom mica.
Susan limps without complaint.
They enjoy the clouds and sunsets.
No birds to be seen.
No morning songs.
Janet coughs, “I miss the birds.”
Susan totters by without complaint.
She croaks that even before the Martians,
“The birds were doomed.”
Sean Crawford
Calgary
July
2019
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