We are rapidly approaching the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. I was in lower Manhattan that day, and my memories have hardly faded even though it now seems to have happened ages ago. Right now, though, I don't want to talk about the attacks but about fear.
In the days immediately after the attacks, New York City was saturated with sorrow. And just beneath the sorrow, there was fear. Two days after the attacks I saw a businessman on a subway who� was visibly trembling with fear. A woman I worked with literally fainted from fright upon hearing a rumor of poison in the subways. And for a while we all ran to the windows of our 40th-floor office whenever we heard a plane.
That was understandable fear; a natural reaction to a terrible event that we personally witnessed. But New Yorkers had to face that fear, and put it aside, to get on with their lives. You simply cannot function here and avoid subways, skyscrapers and famous landmarks, not to mention people who might seem "different." At some point you just have to trust the world and go out and live in it.
New Yorkers remain vigilant. Packages abandoned in subway stations are quickly reported to police, for example. But I'd say that on the whole, New Yorkers don't allow fear of terrorism to run their lives or cloud their judgments.
But in the years since I've noticed many different kinds of fear. For example, I've met people -- not New Yorkers -- who are shocked that I do not support, say, torture of terrorist suspects (or anybody else, for that matter), or curtailments of civil liberties such as warrantless wiretaps and suspension of habeas corpus. Such people are quick to point out how much danger we are in, and how I don't understand what happened on September 11.
Invariably, the person who thinks I "don't understand" September 11 watched it all on his television set, 500 miles away. But I was there. I think I "understand" it well enough, thank you.
People attach to a kind of fake fear, not unlike the kind of fear you feel when watching a horror movie or riding a roller coaster. It can be a sense of excitement that loosens inhibitions and incites recklessness and even mob violence. It also can be a great tool for manipulating public opinion. Bigots use fear to justify their bigotry.
And then there are the conspiracy theorists. Obviously an obsession with secret evil plots to rule the world fills a void in some people's lives. I read a column this morning that said, "We love this manufactured fear, I think because it keeps real fear at bay." There's something to that.
Fear often is irrational. In most parts of the world more people die every year slipping in bathtubs than from terrorist attacks, yet we don't fear bathtubs. In the U.S., some of the same people who see "jihadists" in every shadow deny the danger from global climate change.
Scientists who study why people fear what they fear say that a familiar thing is less feared than a new thing, even when the familiar thing poses more real danger. We also are more fearful of potential but unlikely catastrophes than chronic common dangers, such as heart disease.
Judith Lief said,
The essential cause of our suffering and anxiety is ignorance of the nature of reality, and craving and clinging to something illusory. That is referred to as ego, and the gasoline in the vehicle of ego is fear. Ego thrives on fear, so unless we figure out the problem of fear, we will never understand or embody any sense of egolessness or selflessness.
This takes us back to what the Buddha taught in the Four Noble Truths. The antidote is to thoroughly understand that our fears come from a skewed perspective on ourselves and the world.
For the United States this has been a hard ten years, made harder by the craven exploitation of the terrorist attacks by many of our nation's elected leaders. It makes memories of the day itself that much sadder. Sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed by all the fear and craziness in the world. Then I reflect on the Bodhisattva vows.
Let us all let fear drop away and find trust in our practice.
No comments:
Post a Comment