"In the office in which I work there are five people of whom I am afraid. Each of these five people is afraid of four people (excluding overlaps), for a total of twenty, and each of these twenty people is afraid of six people...
making a total of one hundred and twenty people who are feared by at least one person. Each of these one hundred and twenty people is afraid of the other one hundred and nineteen...
and all of these one hundred and forty-five people are afraid of the twelve men at the top who helped found and build the company and now own and direct it." — Joseph Heller, Something Happened
When asked to name my favorite novel, I often name Something Happened. And when I think of Something Happened, I usually think of the passage quoted above first. I seldom read writing that expresses the primacy of fear in not just every human interaction but every human endeavor.
I don't quite believe that fear is the motivation for every action we take, but I do believe that for every action we take (or avoid taking) there exists at least one highly credible fear-based explanation. We can see ourselves clearly through whom and what we fear at any moment.
The lens of fear clarifies our most mundane actions, such as procrastination. We fear something about a task — the prospect of attempting it and finding out we can't do it well, say — until our fear of leaving the task incomplete outgrows the initial fear.
"What are you afraid of?": a standard taunt, but also a revealing question to ask yourself. First assume we all live in a constant state of at least low-level fear. Then assume we act first in order to minimize how much fear we feel. How many of your actions are thus explained?
We often regret giving in to "distractions," but what do they distract us from? TV shows, the news, video games, social media, inconsequential reading, trivial tasks, unhealthy food and drink: all are stimulating experiences; all generate emotions that distract us from the fear.
Or maybe I should brand it the Fear. Checking the Twitter feed of a favorite provocateur momentarily suppresses the Fear. Looking for articles to read momentarily suppresses the Fear. Pulling up a familiar song on Youtube momentarily suppresses the Fear.
In this manner, the bulk of a lifetime can be squandered on increasingly desperate attempts to avoid feeling the Fear — a prospect that should frighten us.
