As a born and bred
Wisconsinite, who was weaned with cheese curds and brandy old-fashioneds, the
animal that is most likely the bane of my existence is the whitetail deer. For the
entirety of the year, save 9 days in November, I fear that they are laying in
wait in the ditches that line the highways, waiting for an opportunity to dart
out in front of me hoping to inflict damage to the body of my vehicle. During
my brief respite from that I dress up in blaze orange and carry a high-powered
rifle into the woods, hoping to stock my freezer and, if I’m very lucky, put
some antlers on the wall. During that time deer seem to become masters of
concealment and evasion able to detect and avoid even the slightest change in
their environment, and suddenly extremely desirous to make a pilgrimage to the
most remote and inaccessible areas of our state.
Thankfully, these
frustrating creatures have recently helped teach me a very important lesson:
fear requires action, especially if I do not want to end up dead on the side of
a highway.
It’s been just over a
month since I went public with my list of 30 goals for my 30th year
and fear keeps on popping up on my mental radar. It waits for me every time I open
the journal that I use to track my endeavor: ready to dash my hopes, disable my
efforts, dismiss my successes, and deride my failures, shortcomings, and lack
of progress.
Fear, by definition,
is “an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of
danger”. While most of us probably couldn’t have recited that definition we
could all describe how fear makes us feel.
Fear is a universal experience that is highly unique and inherently private to
each individual. For me, fear manifests itself in shaky hands as a pretty girl
approaches, knots in my stomach as I feel the conversation beginning to require
my vulnerability, and restless nights as my mind tries to work through all of
the 1,000 + probable outcomes of any given situation that involves me, but is
beyond my control.
Fear is the stimulus
that produces the animalistic responses of fight or flight. Humanity isn’t too
far removed from the animal kingdom in our response to fear: instead of using
teeth to bite we use our words to hurt, raise our voices to intimidate, or slam
cupboard doors to emphasize our point. Instead of using wings to fly away we
cross our arms to protect, change the subject to be evasive, or make jokes hoping
to disarm the thing that scares us.
I also believe that
animals and humans share a third response to fear: freezing. It is the classic
example of deer-in-the-headlights (luckily, I only have second-hand experience
with this, knock on wood, I have yet to hit a deer while driving). This option, if not a brief layover to
one of the others, almost always leads to the cessation of life instead of its
preservation. The point being that trying to hide from things that cause us
fear by remaining motionless (inaction) brings death.
During a recent
breakdown at my men’s Bible study I came to admit that inaction had become my default
response to fear (in particular the fear of failure and it’s financial cost and
shameful implications on my character). I’ve spent a lot of time waiting to
act, hoping the situation will change, eliminating my need to respond or
nullifying the consequences of any decision I would have made. But, like the
deer that rely on the SUV traveling at 70mph to alter its course, I can only
get away with inaction for so long before it has some very serious
consequences.
There’s an assumption
made by hunters that trophy bucks are smart: that they’ve been around the block
enough times to know a thing or two about a thing or two. Whether it’s entirely
true doesn’t seem to matter, the basic fact is that maturity often brings
wisdom along with it through experience. These bucks with tall tines and broad
spreads have seen mysterious pairs of halogen lights approach them in the night,
foraged through harsh winters, and eluded men dressed in orange who carried
sticks that spit fire and speak thunder and have lived to tell about it. Their
experience yields a physical manifestation of their cunning, perseverance, and
luck. That’s probably why we hunters seek after them as prizes to be put above
our mantles instead of simply sustenance to be put in our freezers.
Most of the things
that cause us to fear as humans are not mortal dangers. Attractive people,
spiders, and large crowds won’t kill us (in most cases). Choosing a college
major or buying a home won’t tear the flesh from our bones. Luckily, we receive
many of the same benefits from responding to fear with action: maturity &
wisdom, experiences that are feathers in our caps and deposits into the bank of
our experience that we can draw on later when similar scary situations arise
for us or in the lives of those we care about.
