Of Dune and Fear

Fear is a friend, Know Her

Dear Sara,

I love Dune. Frank Herbert’s masterpiece that is part political thriller and part sci-fi that deserves a way better review than those few words I just penned. He tackles the issues of diplomacy, power, scarcity, greed, and destiny in one beautifully crafted story that will always remain with you.

But that is not what I write you today. Today I pick the one paragraph that stuck with me through the books. It is about fear.

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

There is something very primal about fear. It is wired down into our very core, into the very base of our brains. We don’t even realize it till we are much older and by then it is a question of adapting to it rather than avoiding it. It is in our very nature to be afraid because fear keeps us alive. fear preserves us. fear spurs us on to action.

But fear is immediate. Fear doesn’t call to smart action, Fear demands immediate action — a reaction, Usually without thought or rationale. In combat, it’s fight or flight. Our bodies literally dump fuel into our bloodstream preparing us for the worst. Move or Die. Fight or Die. Survive!

The modern world, however, doesn’t present us with too many binary decisions. and over time our fear has slowly broadened into a spectrum that flows from nervousness, through anxiety and all the way to horror. We love to think that we have outgrown our base primal instinct but we are cast into decisions every day where our fear plays a key role. And our brains, simple machines that they are, reach for the familiar; Fight, Flight, Survive.

That’s why the words above are the ones I’d like to share with you tonight.

Fear makes us react poorly. We drop diplomacy and immediately raise our walls. We lash out verbally hurting those around us. Or even worse, we retreat, deep into ourselves. Falling into inaction. We fail ourselves.

The only way to fix a problem is to acknowledge it exists. We have to know that fear is a mind-killer. It stops us from thinking, from planning and from executing. We have to know when we are afraid, and how to react in the face of that.

True courage is not the lack of fear. True courage is being afraid and choosing to forge ahead.

Have a courageous day Love.

Yours Always,

Lawrence

#Fear #Letters