I wake afraid.
Of what I don’t know. Of loss, pain, shame, some invisible threat. I am alone in the dark and vulnerable. All is well, I console myself, but that’s not what I’m feeling. I summon Reason to talk me down: This is silly, Carll, get a grip. Laboriously, I inventory my good fortune: Who’s luckier than I? Sure, death awaits – and sorrow – but that’s hardly news! Shine the flashlight under the bed, you ninny. No bogeyman, see?
Such encounters are commonplace, I’m guessing, though too embarrassing to report. Does any playground taunt sting worse than “scaredy cat”? Humans go to loony lengths to prove we’re not spooked.
Other creatures are more sensible. Dog Henry (I must graduate him now from puppy status) can be jumpy as popping popcorn, shying from a grasshopper, hopping at a clanking pot. His apprehension makes us smile – how cute (though not to him). His fears, if realized, could spell trouble. Vigilance or else!
My fear is imaginary. I can’t tell you what I’m afraid of. This makes it hard to combat. I can’t sniff it to be sure it’s benign. Can you sniff a ghost?
Only humans, of all living things, are motivated by invisibilities – fear or gain – neither of which can be proved. Maybe the two are flipsides of the same coin. Fear is rare for me: mostly I’m rapacious for gain, though the object of my rapacity has altered over the years. Younger I was greedy for adulation, sports victories, sex, wealth, power, now eloquence, wisdom, serenity. I took reckless risks to achieve my dazzling goals, deluded about the likelihood of success. I’m still at it. Typing these words, I mean to wow you – how likely is that!
Fear, that other mighty motivator, makes its victims self-protective, suspicious, angry, anxious. Many grownups never outgrow their apprehensions. The other day I read of a white parent at a graduation forcibly preventing his kid from shaking hands with the Black person awarding the degree. Yikes – the contagion of a touch! This anecdote disgusts – but is this panic so different from what woke me in the dark? Without Reason’s timely intervention, I too might have made an ass of myself.
For almost a decade now I’ve been marveling at the allure of Trump to his fanatic adherents. Their convictions, based on falsehoods and fatuities, made no sense! Now Trump wants us to dread a justice system that penalizes us for rape and fabricating business records to mask our mischief: what the – !!! No rapes or accounting shenanigans in my background, none I know of: why be afraid! No Black hand or raving immigrant has ever threatened me: I’ve never been wrongfully arrested: why be afraid! Fear laughs at Reason’s protestations. No bogeyman under the bed? Too bad, you just missed him. He’ll be back. Be VERY AFRAID!!!
“Oderint dum metuant,” sneered Caligula sensibly, if cynically: “Let them hate as long as they fear.” The secret to power is intimidation not improvement. Scare the bejeezus out of your constituents and they’ll accept misrule as preferable to the horrifying alternative. Reason cannot defeat Fear because Fear has branded Reason as the devil’s trick.
Fear sometimes works – until we wake. Panic and fury assassinate Caligula. The forces of earth combine to crush Hitler. Tyrants die despised.
Only Fear can defeat Fear. With any luck that’s what’s happening in America today. Yes, there’s a bogeyman, but not under the bed: he’s glaring from every screen. Let us vote not to better America but to save ourselves.
Maybe that’s what woke me in the night.