Life in Ireland

This is the best description of fear that I have ever come across. It is from the book Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I have looked for a website belonging to Yann to link to from here, if you know of one let me know and I will add a link to his site. Thanks.

But more on fear. Fear is something that I find can get into my head when I least expect it and it is corrosive and hell on the mind and on life in general. So instead of my puny words to describe it, I am going to take chapter 56 from the Life of Pi, the whole of this very short chapter is on fear. This is a master at work.

“I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.

Fear next turns to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear.

Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.

The matter is dificult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”

I was stunned when I first read this. I got to the end and sat just staring at somewhere, I am not sure where. He has got it so right, and the answer is contained within. Shine the light, talk. But I don’t always want to show my weakness. I am a man and I should be strong, my head tells me, none of that crap for me. I know that I am sometimes wrong, however to change…

Fear…

Prague, Czech Republic - West Highland Way - Dublin Ireland Dublin

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