Fear’s Function

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If you were walking through the woods and saw a bear, which then turned to look at you, I hope you would feel some fear.ª The function of fear is to protect us from threats. 

Those pursuing power and greatness sometimes come to believe that the greater or more powerful they are, the less they have to fear. But this is a dangerous error.

When a man grows inwardly and increases in holiness, he is something great and marvelous. But just as the elephant fears the mouse, so the holy man is still afraid of sin, lest after preaching to others he himself “should be cast away” (1 Corinthians 9.27).

Saint John of Karpathos

If the saint fears sin, what does the person aspiring to worldly greatness fear? The lawsuit alleging racial discrimination or sexual harassment? Being convicted of theft or fraud? He often doesn’t seem to fear them before they happen, too late for fear to protect him.

In his first inaugural address,º President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the famous line, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” It was meant to exhort his hearers to progressive action and away from the fear of paralysis and retreat caused by the Great Depression.

But please don’t quote President Roosevelt’s line out of context. Only a fool would aspire to be fearless.

ª Unless, of course, you were Saint Seraphim of Sarov.

º https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/froos1.asp

Prediction & Presence

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There’s a lot of effort put into forecasting—from the stock market and customer behavior, to the weather and the amount of material a company should order for manufacturing wool socks if the winter will be an especially cold one. Accurate prediction can be a powerful tool for management. 

But in human relationships and leadership, prediction has a much more limited value since it can trap us in rigidity, calcifying our thinking, emotional responses, or behavior. It’s helpful for the parent as manager to know there’s a high likelihood of a hungry or tired child at a certain hour, but it doesn’t exactly instill a growth mindset in anyone when we are too attached to a prediction about them. One of my seminary professors once called this “the sin of familiarity.”

We fall into this trap because prediction is attractive, for it creates the illusion of control.

In his beautiful book A Primer for Forgetting,ª Lewis Hyde shares “a discipline of the present moment” from British psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion, namely divesting oneself of memory and desire in one’s encounters with another:

To make room for intuitive knowing, every analytic session “must have no history and no future.” The therapist who knows something from the past may as well forget it to make room for the unknown…“do not remember past sessions.“…for when such things occupy the mind, the “evolution of the session” won’t be seen at the only time it can be seen, in the present moment. Second, avoid all desire, especially “desire for results, ‘cure,’ or even understanding.”

My friend George, part of whose work is in the aforementioned forecasting for wool sock production, reframes and expands on this idea: “Interacting with others based on our expectations from past encounters can make us callous to the possibility that others (and even ourselves) can and do change. When we expect certain behavior, we’re likely to frame and respond to others’ behavior in the form of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and doing so, we may fail to recognize growth and change, which can prolong resentment and delay forgiveness.”

And so for an alliteratively plosive principle: Don’t let prudent predictions of the probable preclude the practice of presence to the possible.

ª https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374237219

Intentional Humility

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It was perhaps in the 7th century that John of Karpathos wrote:

It is most necessary and helpful for the soul to endure with fortitude every tribulation…We should recognize that our sufferings are no more than we deserve, and we should never blame anyone but ourselves. For whoever blames others for his own tribulations has lost the power of judging correctly what is to his own advantage.

In the 21st century, Jim Collins wrote:

Level 5 leaders look out the window to apportion credit to factors outside themselves when things go well (and if they cannot find a specific person or event to give credit to, they credit good luck). At the same time, they look in the mirror to apportion responsibility, never blaming bad luck when things go poorly.

Perhaps in the 22nd century, someone will write, “Check for a bug in your own algorithm first.”

What will be Left Inside?

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Every technological advance simultaneously augments and atrophies a human function by outsourcing it. Because my “smart” phone can “remember” thousands of phone numbers, my brain does not. As this phenomenon continues at an exponential paceª, thoughtful reflection and informed decision about how we use our tools will only become more important.

Although many find their way of life alien, the Amish provide a powerful example of this reflective practice, examining technological developments against their Ordnung, a code of values. For example, they generally eschew the use of automobiles and airplanes, primarily because these technologies don’t contribute to their experience of community, one of their core values. 

I’m not quite ready to give up my car. But I wonder if having a garden in my backyard and a grocery store within walking distance would result in a healthier diet, getting more exercise, meeting more of my neighbors along the way, and spewing less exhaust into the air. And I wonder what’s stopping me from organizing for that.

The most significant technological innovation of our age is probably the internet. But the consequences of its misuse are alarming. Social media, for example, turns personality into product. We see all too clearly now the dangers that arise when we interact with the momentary and fragmentary images and words that represent real people in the same or a similar way that we would with those real people. We become “like butter scraped over too much bread.”

It seems that our tools are most capable of outsourcing our physical and intellectual functions for the purpose of getting results or solutions. But what of our emotional and spiritual dimensions? Can those be outsourced in a healthy way? And at the end of all this outsourcing, what will be left inside?

ª https://www.akimbo.link/blog/s-7-e-11-is-seth-real