On fear
Published in the first week of coronavirus quarantine.
Fear itself is not a bad thing. It can appear as a strength, as the establishment of criteria for what is worth doing in a given moment. The fear of the virus, for a couple of hours, is good. It reorganizes us, we review priorities and our plan of action. But fear serves this purpose only, and it should never paralyze us, delaying further action. Let’s consider it more deeply:
Fear is a system of hierarchy. Write this down. It may look weird now, but soon you will read this again and, I hope, find new meaning. A system of hierarchy. People, we could say, feel fear because they love something they can lose. There is the cause of fear, simple: what we love and our impotence to guard it. There is something I do not want to lose, that I love, but it is beyond my reach to guarantee its permanence. If I love something I can lose, I am obliged to appreciate it, to put it in the place it deserves, because it could be gone anytime.
Fear is a signal that our system of priorities is in place, that we are able to declare and value what matters the most to us. Fear appears as a flare, an alert, to remind us: you love some things that may be somewhat overlooked. Perhaps you have spent some time on another topic, fantasizing, forgetting, but you love some things.
It is important to state this. Whoever denies fear is not above it. The person who ignores fear, who is not afraid of anything, is not evaluating priorities reasonably. She or he, whoever claims this ‘amazing’ courage, has fixed what matters most to and becomes insensitive to the circumstances. Some may say “but he knows what he wants, he is pragmatic! He is strong, steady and fears no one”. Alright, but things change, and the way we give love must adapt those new scenarios! Fear is a system of hierarchy! If a person you love is sick, you must be afraid. Not to be terrified, but to reorganize, change your routines, your priorities. You should love and care for that person while you can. If you fear nothing … you are not fearless, but insensitive, you are living in lovelessness.
People reveal themselves in fear. They are obliged to declare what matters most to them. Here we recall the great portuguese poet Camões:
“The amateur becomes the beloved thing.”
The person who loves something ends up becoming, poetically, that thing. You involve your personality in what you want. When reviewing our life narrative, we see that we are what we loved. Hence, a contemporary fear arises: by sketching and checking our fears, our hierarchy system, we discover that we are futile, that our priorities were bullshit.
What do you love? This is an important question, which times of crisis help us to answer.
I’m afraid of getting sick and dying. Ok, it is clear that health is good, but it is a secondary good. It enables you to seek other things. In fact, by definition, the end of life involves loss of health, so we cannot place our guidance on it alone.
A moment of crisis gives us the chance to rethink our values. We will not be caught off guard, guiding ourselves by futility. We will not discover, late in life, that we love something that cannot be loved.
But what about my fear when my daughter has an illness and I cannot do anything? Fear there comes from love but also from impotence.
If the fear of someone dying causes me anxiety and worry that is good. We are already progressing, we are already better: not looking at our ego, at our own self, but at the other. This is a love much more suited to the human life, as all religion tradition has said. But we know that our loved ones will die one day …
As we know that death exists and will reach everyone, we must face it with our heads up, guiding ourselves by this fact. Our time is scarce, and scarcity means value. We can say now: be afraid at first, so that it gives you the dimension of the importance of each thing, of the time you have. Fear, feel it quickly, then forget about it. It’s time for action. Every circumstance that appears, regardless of how terrible, is the territory of our action, and must be accepted as such.
Whether the situation is made of joy or illness, fame or dishonor, fortune or crisis, we act on it.
Only small children live in fantasy and loves circumstances that are not presented to them. But so many of us do this.
Now, the circumstance is that of the pandemic. But the world has gone through so many others, even worse.
So take those circumstances and integrate them into your personality.
As the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset says: I am myself and my circumstances. And if I do not save them, I won’t save myself.
Fear will not erase the self or the circumstances. Fear will denounce the quality of our love, of our priorities, and demand our action.
As I said at the beginning, and now it must have more meaning: fear is a system of hierarchy.
Feel fear for a moment. A little bit of it is good. Accept it, think, realize what matters to you. Organize your priorities, declare what you love. Then let it go, forget about it. Act, study, work, care, serve, because that is where we can find any hope, and fear should not be our guest.
