Letter to Ansh — 12 : On Fear

Dear Ansh

It is 5th March 2020. You are visiting your grandparents with your Mum in India. I miss you both very much.

You are a full three years old now, just a bit more than three now actually. You have also grown quite tall and you are probably taller than all your friends. You also have the most delightful charm, you enjoy running around and jumping on the bed.

You are very strong! and nothing makes me more happy to see you happy and healthy.

Everyday you seem to pick new skills and it is absolutely magical to see you grow up. I can practically perceive the neural pathways building up in your brain. The human mind is an amazing thing.

We make observations, and our brain records them. Deduces the patterns of inputs and outputs and learns to achieve outputs in a predictable manner. We are able to learn. We also have a keen sense of self, we humans are self aware more than any other organism. And we try to preserve ourselves actively.

A lifetime of recording what is happening around us and perceiving what inputs that went into achieving the outputs becomes our life experience. And how we take that experience and apply it in our actions essentially becomes who we as a person are.

Being alive is great.

We are a bit like an extremely complex machine which obeys hundreds of thousands of rules, and keeps learning new ones as we experience new things.

A lot of our outputs to inputs are almost automated based on a history of experiences accumulated over time. Reactions to stimuli.

Place hand on fire first time, you will do it without probably any hesitation.

But once your hand gets a bit burnt, you will correlate flame with danger and avoid it next time. Your body will generate hormones that gets it ready for either a “fight or flight” response.

Often times fear flows us from our ancestors and not just the experiences we learnt during our lifetime. They made certain fight or flight choices based on their biochemistry reaction to frightful stimuli and we end up with a certain set of characteristics.

Certain groups of people are naturally fearful and certain groups of people are naturally ok with being more risk taking and adventurous.

If your parents and their parents survived by taking shelter and escaping danger then your body will be more attuned to generating fear as a natural response.

If you came from a line of risk takers who fought it out and survived you are likely to still have fear but might stand your ground and fight it out.

Both are acceptable responses based on the circumstance. Neither one is more glorious or superior than the other and it all boils down to the context. It is not a better idea to fight to death when the situation does not demand it, tactical retreats to fight another day won Washington the revolutionary war.

However it is very important to understand where fear comes from.

Fear is our perception that the new situation we find ourselves in will lead to a worsening of our condition.

When you are fearful your mind is not processing as normal. Your heart is palpitating and it is getting blood flow moving to get your body ready for its fight or flight response. Inability to judge the situation correctly can often lead to a fight or flight response when neither of them was necessary.

And an incorrect response can lead to a suboptimal outcome.

Running away from a barking dog might seem natural, but it will likely lead to the dog chasing you and biting you. Attacking it will likely lead to a similar outcome.

Recognizing and assessing the situation correctly and calmly standing your ground will generally have the dog sniff you out and walk away.

I have run into this specific scenario several times.

It is very important to understand fear and the origin of our fear to determine a correct response.

A flow chart below can be useful.

Often times our fear is based on the “fear of the unknown”.

We fear things that we don't understand. When there is something we don't comprehend, then it is not possible to predict the outcomes of how it will respond to our actions.

This unpredictability means we cannot prepare properly for our own defense.

Lack of time to prepare means our mind goes with the assumption that the worst can happen anytime and puts us in the fight or flight mode generating fear.

It is a perfectly natural thing to fear the unknown.

However being perpetually afraid of things we do not understand means that we are living life suboptimally. We would be unable to experience all the great things life has to offer if we keep being afraid of the unknown.

You would never go out and try out a new dish if you were afraid that you might throw up.

You might never make new friends and relationships, have new experiences if you always choose to stay within your comfort zone of what you know as of now.

So the first thing to deal with the fear of the unknown is to try and get to know it. Broaden your knowledge, read, learn, educate yourself. Try to understand the new thing as much as you can.

Your objective is to get it from the unknown, to the known category.

While it may not be completely possible to get it completely in the known segment, you can try to push it as far as you can to get it in the predictable territory.

Once it is predictable it gets far easier to deal with it.

Chances are you should not have been afraid of it in the first place. What you thought was a dangerous monster turned out to be the shadow of a puppy. Happy days!

However sometimes it will turn out that you do have legitimate reasons to be afraid about it. You might discover that the monster you thought lurking was actually a bear, and it is perfectly dangerous.

So the next question that needs to be answered is can I do something about the situation I find myself in?

If there is anything you can do to fix the matter, by taking certain actions if the danger goes away then you should just go ahead and do it.

As simple as that.

However there will be scenarios where dangers exist that steadily creep towards you and there is absolutely nothing that you can do about them.

Terrible things look like a possibility on the horizon and there is absolutely nothing in your power to influence the course of events.

This takes us into more complicated territory.

The best way to deal with this situation is really to accept that the worst might happen and assess if that would be really so bad? Can I deal with the worst and still be ok?

Generally speaking the worst outcome does not end up eventuating majority of the times. So our worries are often misplaced. But even if the worst does end up happening it is actually not as bad or it is not beyond our power to recover from. So worrying about the worst might happen is often misplaced.

You deal with the eventuality that the worst might happen, accept it and move on.

But what do you do when the worst is so bad that there is no way you can deal with it?

What about the loss of a loved one, or dealing with a terminal disease, or a life altering injury, bankruptcy, terrible reputational damage or something like that.

There are plenty of terrible things that can happen to us through our lives and pretending that bad things never happen would be to do a disservice.

Life eventually does come to an end. And to be honest that is a good thing.

The earth belongs to the living, Jefferson once said. The dead have no claim.

All the baggage we accumulate gets washed away and life gets the opportunity to begin anew.

Life as a whole renews itself through the process of pruning.

But the renewal does mean the end of something. And it is not easy to deal with. It never is.

However what we can however do is prize life when we do have it.

Live life daily the way we would want to live it. Do the right thing, always. Do the things that make you happy and allows you to maximize your potential.

Do your best everyday, all the time. Life is too precious and short for half measures.

Doing that will allow you to be contented and fulfilled.

When you are content, chances are you will likely be able to deal with even the worst.

Death comes, and it surely comes for all of us. When it does come, we should be able to greet it as a friend with no loose ends left behind and with no regrets of what could have been.

Live long and prosper my friend.

Your father

Moresh