Fear Less

Chapter 1

The Monster Under the Bed

I was scared of the ball.

They called it a softball, but it seemed plenty hard to me: I had felt it sting my fingers, smack my chest. As it shot toward me, my whole body flinched-that is, when it came toward me at all, as I stood exiled in far right field, where the team hoped I would do the least damage.

I was the skinny, uncoordinated kid: the spaz, in the fifth-grade playground lingo of the day. The only game I was good at was dodgeball-not hurling the ball at others, but jumping out of its way. That made perfect sense to me.

Every recess started with the mortifying ritual of choosing teams. The two captains-big Chuck and quick, wiry Ricky-picked boys from best to worst till they finally came to the slow, heavy kid and me, the dreaded dregs. After much disgusted stalling, one captain would sigh dramatically and say, "OK . . . we'll take Fats if you take Spaz."

In the classroom, I had no fear. I cheerfully took over discussions, settling back in my seat and enjoying a chummy tte-ˆ-tte with the teacher, only dimly aware of the restless fidgeting going on all around me. Eventually I noticed Chuck, in the back corner near the door, self-exiled to his own right field, head down, trying for once to be small. Hmmmmm . . . a history question shooting toward him threatened as much danger and humiliation as a softball did for me. Different people, different situations, same feeling. Interesting.

The Cold War was on. In social studies we watched black-and-white propaganda films about communism, with grim narrators and the crablike hammer and sickle squatting over the map of Europe, sprouting evil tentacles of world domination. From time to time, in the middle of a math or geography lesson, the teacher would suddenly shout, "Drop!" We'd fall to our knees and duck and cover under our desks, waiting for an A-bomb to come hurtling toward Woodlake Avenue Elementary School, wondering just how effectively our wooden desktops would shield us from the thermonuclear fireball. Hmmmmm . . .

Now we're grownups. Terrorists have replaced Communists, and we've graduated from the playground to other grounds for fear: the office, the boardroom, the bedroom, the barroom. And the newsroom. The last presidential election was fueled by fear, and it's been a white-knuckle ride ever since, with spiking anxiety levels reported by psychologists nationwide. The political is personal.

But no matter who's elected today or impeached tomorrow, our deepest fears persist:

Fear of pain.

Fear of confusion.

Fear of change.

Fear that things will never change, that this is all there is.

Fear of responsibility.

Fear of aging and illness.

Fear of loss, bereavement, abandonment.

Fear that the good times are over, that joy has fled.

Fear of boredom, loneliness, intimacy, violation.

Fear of failure, rejection, humiliation.

Fear of others' opinions, of our own feelings, of being fooled, of blowing it onstage, of being exposed as a bewildered child among the confident adults.

Fear for the planet. We look to the world our children will inherit and wonder if it will be The Jetsons or Mad Max.

Fear of missing out. For years I was haunted by my high school English teacher's story of his father, who traveled the world, saw the sights, had more adventures than the next ten men, but died screaming-screaming-because he felt that, whatever life was all about, he had missed it.

Our fears may be rooted in big traumas haunting the past or big challenges looming in the future, but they cast their shadow over the smallest moments of everyday life right now. We're afraid of wearing the wrong outfit to the party, of sounding stupid if we speak up in the meeting, of getting lost if we take the scenic route. Choices must be made, and we long for the time when we chose out of joy (Should I play on the slide or the jungle gym?) rather than fear (Will it be worse if I tell my partner how I feel or keep it to myself?).

These and the other afflictive emotions-grief, loneliness, guilt, jealousy, confusion, shame, disappointment, resentment, greed, self-righteousness, exasperation, despair-are all deeply connected. Whether they're boiling over into crisis or simmering toxically on a back burner, they're all brewed from fear. They all make us feel unfree and alone. Whether I'm playing my eleventh game of Candy Crush and trying to forget I have a term paper to write, or I'm off in a corner with my spoon and my quart of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, I feel like I'm all alone and no one must know, even when everyone knows.

Of course, this isn't the whole picture. If you're lucky and you're paying attention, life offers any number of joys and wonders. Many of us manage to sidestep the most destructive habits and scenarios, and to lead reasonably sane, progressive lives. But even in your happiest moments (playing with your healthy, laughing kids), even in your most sublime moments (lost, lost in the music), even in your most thrilling moments (merging in ecstasy with the lover you were born for)-even then, hovering in some dim corner that we try our best to ignore, is the final, definitive fear: your eventual annihilation and that of everything and everyone you love. All this must end. Nevermore, game over, buh-bye, here's your hat, no refunds, no apologies, no exceptions. Death is in the house and demands to be fed. He'll eat you and your little dog too.

And Yet . . .

And yet perhaps you've known people for whom this is all somehow different-who seem to have some deep wisdom, some internal gyroscope that keeps them balanced, some inner silence that inoculates them against the standard craziness and panic. Maybe it was an uncle or aunt, a wise teacher or professor, the nice lady at the corner store, the plumber. Maybe your most inspiring exemplars were movie characters: Yoda or Obi-Wan Kenobi, Aslan, Gandalf, Mary Poppins, Glinda the Good Witch. But you're at least vaguely aware that there are supposed to have been real people who have embodied that silent wisdom fully-enlightened people, awakened ones, sages.

There are.