Dread Reckoning - The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear of the Wrong Things

HAVE A PET theory that we are all afraid of the wrong things. Fear is blind. It does not contain the faculty of foresight.

I have mentioned the woman in Honolulu who was worried about an earthquake a few days before Pearl Harbor. Thousands of Angelenos feared a big earthquake last May because of some irresponsible talk on TV about the alleged predictions of that notorious fraud and bad poet, Nostradamus.

Much has been said about the fear of combat.

I have often wondered what makes men go into combat. I believe that it is fear of being thought a coward by one’s peers. I suppose some men are truly brave. It was not bravery that motivated me.

John Keegan, the British historian, reveals in “The Face of Battle,” his excellent study of soldiers in battle, that in medieval times, and particularly at the battle of Agincourt, the men were drunk.

Alas, no such false courage was offered soldiers in World War II, though many officers had a bottle in their packs.

Even in World War I, the soldier’s weapon was a machine, and drunkenness was not a help in its use. Today’s technology calls for heroic sobriety.

Probably most of us still fear the phenomena we feared as children: the dark, being alone, monsters and ghosts, animals and insects, doctors and dentists, strangers, loud noises and so on.

A chart published recently in U.S. News & World Report (reprinted from Children magazine) reports that 59% of all children between the ages of 3 and 6 are afraid of the dark and that darkness leads every other cause of fear.

By the time we reach adulthood most of us have outgrown our fear of the dark.

It has become our friend. It shields us from our enemies. It promotes sleep. It shuts out the frantic day. It provides a benevolent cover for making love.

Fifty percent of children 3 to 6 years old fear being alone. Naturally, having been thrust into this world in complete ignorance of its ways, and needing almost constant attention, they would be afraid of being alone.

I am always seeking evidence of my adulthood. Perhaps I can find it in the fact that I no longer fear being alone, at least not for short periods of time.

I am quite content with my own company, unless my wife gets home from work too late. Then I begin to wonder who’s going to cook my dinner.

I no longer fear monsters and ghosts, not even those produced by the wizards of special effects in movies. The only monsters I fear are human. Ghosts do not exist.

It is interesting that only 5% of children 5 and 6 years old feared school, and only 4% percent of 7- and 8-year-olds feared examinations and tests. Perhaps that is because they are not yet old enough to understand that life is a series of tests and trials.

Only 7% of children 5 to 8 years old fear war. Perhaps, if they do not live in warring countries--among the horrors--they have no concept of war and cannot relate it to their own lives.

Most of our fears are of general calamities. We fear war because we know it is a possibility. We fear earthquakes because we know they are probable. We fear death because we know it is certain.

Most of us, though, foresee death in the wrong guise.

We fear we will be shot by gangs, when we are more likely to die in bed. We fear we will die in an airplane crash, when we are more likely to die of drink.

I myself am afraid that I will die of old age, which I probably will.

What else am I afraid of, now that most of the common childhood fears are behind me?

Well, eliminate the dark, ghosts and monsters and being alone, and I’m still afraid of most all the things children are afraid of.

I’m afraid of loud noises, heights, going fast and natural disasters.

I’m not exactly afraid of doctors and dentists, but for some reason my blood pressure rises whenever I visit one.

Most of all, like everyone else, I am afraid of making a social faux pas.

We are cowards all.