Fear of Life

“Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.”

– Maya Angelou

Though the dodo bird is long extinct, its name lives on as a reminder that sapiens took their lack of fear—and ease of killing—as a sign of stupidity. The kea bird of today—confident, cooperative, playful, and loving of problem-solving—is at risk of a similar fate. Moderns believe in fight-or-flight adrenaline, and in the right to kill whatever living system we construe as threat or interference. We imagine life to be “other” and fall into biophobia while identifying with artificial products of industrialism and data processing.

With emergence, sapiens could come into better relation to time—especially biologic time—and try to see the bad judgments of the “civilizations” of the past that depleted the land around them, from the Indus Valley to Eridu to Seattle. The adaptive unconscious that can support the reactions needed for good judgment in a crisis—as so well-described by Malcom Gladwell in Blink could be a model for the development of adaptive awareness and comprehension to green congregations, restore damaged salmon runs and habitats, and avert the sixth extinction. Sapiens could choose life as per the Psalms. As they say, humans are the only species to be able to choose not to go extinct—but we haven’t done it, and not only are we “on the clock,” we’ve gone past the eleventh hour.

In the Dark Ages, when the cataclysmic volcanic events circa 536 drove the tribes of the steppes toward Rome and the Viking mercenaries back to what was left of their home (and eventually into the Viking Age), the courage to kill was much talked-of. It continues to speak through the epic poetry revived by Tolkien and by Marvel Comics, and through emerging syntheses of history and archaeology. As Neil Price notes in Children of Ash and Elm, these epics were, perhaps, propaganda of the time designed to extract service from followers. When courage failed, a berserker’s wife and children would be on the field to push a fleeing swordsman back into the action. We have an unaccountable nostalgia for that era, which we continue to re-enact—sometimes literally, as with the Battle of Hastings.

What we need now is the courage of enduring resolve with open awareness and deft on-going problem-solving on a global scale. This must be driven by the love of life, and fear-free, long-term restoration of it. So far, fear of life owns modern sapiens despite Frank Herbert’s reminder in Dune that “fear is the mind-killer… the little death that brings total obliteration.” When you feel drawn to popular horror or suspense stories that cast nature as frightening, remember that courage extends to more than just the willingness to kill; it takes courage to love and live. This courage is a trait too often missing now, when we need it more than ever.