We’ll face our fears and live a little
In his first speech, the President called on his fellow Americans to ‘‘convert retreat into advance’’ and, in the time-honoured tradition of porkies masquerading as political rhetoric, famously declared that ‘‘the only thing we have to fear is fear itself’’.
This was patently untrue. During The Great Depression, there was much to fear, from unemployment to destitution and despair, not to mention the ultimate return of all the boom-times bogeymen: death, taxes and inflation.
Fear is real. The perception of danger is writ in our genes, an innate emotion that manifests physiologically as a fight-or-flight response. When we’re afraid, our heart rate rises, our breathing speeds up, we get goosebumps and break out in a cold sweat.
It’s sometimes said that fear is a rational response to the risk of threat – from pythons and spiders to antibiotic-resistant superbugs or public speaking – whereas an irrational fear is a phobia. Many animals have developed species-specific defence responses to fear. For example, our cat will take on the family dog but recoils at a toy rubber snake.
When I was a kid, I was afraid of the dark. I was afraid of zombies and poltergeists, demons and dogs with rabies (thanks, Cujo). I tormented myself with Stephen King novels and nuclear holocaust horror stories.
In my first job, as a radio journalist, fact soon supplanted fiction. Radio news is all about the quick get, and when you’re chasing soundbites and scoops, the news is never good. ‘‘If if bleeds, it leads,’’ was the newsroom mantra.
After two years in the job, I could no longer sleep in my own home alone. Evil was real. On the media bench in the Auckland High Court, I’d sat metres away from its henchmen: the murderers, serial rapists and drugfuelled young thugs who stabbed and strangled strangers in home invasions.
When I watched Michael Moore’s 2002 documentary Bowling For Columbine, my paranoia made more sense. Perception is reality. By then, however, I’d left radio news for the genteel world of gardening and these days I no longer check if my doors and windows are all locked at night.
If anything, in middle age the fear of the unknown somehow morphs into the fear of the inevitable: irrelevancy, redundancy, a diminishing metabolism.
Parents fear for the safety of their children; I fear the loss of my parents. And when I walk through my garden after dark, I’m mostly afraid of tripping over my own feet and not having enough cellphone reception to phone the emergency services.
As children, we are told to feel the fear and do it anyway; to face our fears and conquer them; that the only obstacle to success is the fear of failure.
So, on Anzac Day, my 6-year-old son Lucas and I are taking a day trip to Wellington. We’re going to the Gallipoli exhibition at Te Papa. But more importantly, we’re going to try to snuff out his fear of flying.
As a toddler, Lucas racked up his share of frequent flyer miles but he hasn’t been on a plane for a couple of years, and it appears he’s forgotten what it’s like. When I told him we were planning a family trip to the United States this year, tears rolled down his face. ‘‘What if the plane crashes?’’ he sobbed.
Can fear be overcome with knowledge? Lucas and I have been doing our research, though I’ve deliberately steered him away from this week’s coverage of the engine