Transforming Trauma Into Wisdom

The greatest weight. What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live it once more and innumerable times more: and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence — even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?

(Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, s.341)

"Transforming Trauma Into Wisdom." This is a workshop about the meaning of events in our lives that leave us feeling broken and unable to move forward. When all hope seems lost, when every other possibility seems exhausted, how do we continue to move forward? How do we put ourselves back together after being broken? 

Moments of intense sorrow, fear, and pain can actually have an important meaning in our lives. In his book "Man's Search for Meaning," Viktor Frankl discusses how finding the meaning in even the most awful of situations, such as his own experience in the Nazi concentration camps, allows us to make it through to ultimately live a full and rich life. He says "in some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning."

But getting to the point where we can reflect back on traumatic experiences with gratitude and peace is a different journey for everyone. That is the process we will be reflecting on in this blog post and in the workshop it is associated with.

First, let us examine the title I chose more carefully.

"Transform." In this word are the roots "trans-" and "form". "Trans-" is a Latin root meaning "across, over, beyond". It came from a Proto-Indo-European root word "*tra-" which meant "to cross over, pass through, overcome." "Form" derives from Latin "formare" meaning "to shape, fashion, build". Within the very first word of this workshop title are the meanings of passing through, and even beyond. Overcoming, moving on to the next level. And we also see a sense of creating, shaping, playing an active role in this process of moving through and beyond. I pause now to reflect that all of my workshops are at least in some way about a process of transformation. One could characterize the overarching thesis of the Meaning Is Alive project as "one who can transform the meaning of their experiences (including thoughts, memories, symbols, just as much as physical phenomena, events, and people), is capable of transforming life itself." But of course, I don't want to pin down this project under a single thesis.

My workshops have all been about our power to create something new from the ideas in our minds. These ideas all connect with one another, and the meaning of any one notion takes its significance in no small part from its relationships with the others, and our relationship with it. To play an active role in changing the meaning of even some small part of this network of meanings, to transform it, is to transform the entirety of the whole.

"Trauma." This is actually a Greek word that used to literally mean "a wound, a hurt, a defeat." It comes from the Proto-Indo-European root "*trau-", an extension of a root meaning "to rub, to turn" with several derivatives indicating a violent motion of one kind or another. Today we can still use it in the sense of a physical wound, while the figurative sense in which we are here using the word developed in the late 19th century. This sense of a "psychological or emotional wound" is still very much present in the way we use the word today, and lends itself to the language of feeling "scarred" or even "broken." These experiences can be literal catastrophic injuries, chronic illness, the loss of a loved one or friend, a terrible betrayal, abuse, an encounter with something monstrous... The list goes on and trauma is surely something all of us have experienced to at least some degree. These experiences can leave an impression of fear and pain that we continue to relive¹ even years afterward.

"Wisdom." One of my favorite words comes from Old English "wis" meaning "learned, cunning, experienced, power to discern" and the ending "-dom" which denotes a state of being. If we trace the origins of the "wis" part all the way back to Proto-Indo-European", we find the root "*weid-" which meant "to see". Wisdom is typically characterized as distinct from the kind of knowledge we get from memorizing the contents of books. To become wise is quite literally to "see" how things are. It is through experiencing things in a state of awareness that we come to a state (a "dom") of being wise. In this workshop we are looking at how the experience of trauma can be transformed into Wisdom.

But there is a reason I don't call this "The Wisdom of Trauma". This workshop is about "Transforming Trauma Into Wisdom" because the way in which we understand, interpret, and relate to both traumatic experiences and memories, plays a key role in how wise we become through them. Wisdom is not something that can be quantified, but it can vary in its degree of depth. To bring back the philosophy in this: the degree of depth of wisdom to be gleaned from any experience is determined not just by going through the experience itself, but by how we see that experience. Yes: there are ways to relate to and to interpret experiences that are more and less conducive to arriving at wisdom.

As a side note, due to the uniqueness of each of our experiences, I cannot tell any one person how to come to wisdom from their particular trauma. The only authority in what you make of your life is you. I am here to share my vision of the potential we all have for this transformation. If something I say can put you in a place of glimpsing even the smallest fraction of that potential, perhaps you will then go on to explore its full depths.

We have a choice when faced with great suffering, suffering so deep that it may mark the end of an era, of how to respond to that suffering. It occurs to me that we have a choice to let ourselves be defined by that suffering, or to take an active role in choosing how we relate to it. In other words, wherever there is undeniable pain or loss, we always still maintain agency in how we respond to it. This is a view I hold in common with Frankl, who at another point in the aforementioned book says, "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way." From this position we may examine those traumas that have altered us, and choose choose who we will become in the face of them, perhaps even to become something beautiful. —"But what if that which was altered by this trauma was already so beautiful?" Yes, it may have been, and the pain of loss is a whole matter unto itself. To hold onto an image of something that has fallen apart could look like shambling forward, attempting to hold together the pieces. But what if we allow a breath of fresh air, an openness to becoming something new? This can look different for everyone, and coming to such a stage is not necessarily straightforward. But to even admit to the possibility of becoming something new, is a deeply liberating act.

Sometimes the pain of being "broken" is not a breaking of the actual life itself, but rather the image of what that life was supposed to be. The loss of identity can be devastating, as any self-image is an intricate amalgam constructed through a series of associations and meanings. While it is only natural to grieve the loss of something so special, there is a more hopeful implication here: if such an image was constructed, then surely a new one may be built.

What if the image of who you thought yourself to be has confined and delimited the potential expanse of true Being, of life itself? Then its breaking is like the shattering of a barrier, like the new chick breaking free from its egg. Perhaps in this way, trauma can become the basis of a new transformation. I am reminded of the quote by Kahlil Gibran in his poem, On Pain: "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding."

This new version of "who I am" will often be something that we never could have imagined before the traumatic event. And if we find beauty in this new state of being, if it becomes something that we can truly exult in, we may even come to a point where we say to this trauma, "ah, you were exactly what I needed to become what I am today."

An image of a pot fashioned through the art of kintsugi.

 

In the Japanese art of kintsugi, a pot that was broken is repaired with gold, creating a new and beautiful work of art from the pieces. The unique pattern that each crack takes is a great metaphor for the unique way in which all of our scars manifest in our lives today. Our scars make us unique, and they show that we have been through life's challenges and lived to be here and now, today.

 

Beauty is of course in the eye of the beholder, and a truly loving beholder is set up to find the most moving experience of beauty. But there is more to this precious gold than love and beauty.

This gold of self-re-creation may be made of different stuff for each one of us, but I venture to say that the main ingredients are: patience, love, and courage. These are three ways of being, and because of the way they interact and shape each other, I will talk about them all together here.

 

The process of finding meaning and wisdom, of self-transformation through trauma, is something that goes hand-in-hand with the process of healing. This can take time and looks different for each one of us. This is why patience is so important. Hope that there are brighter days ahead could fortify us as we patiently persevere through an unfolding process, but ultimately patience is the key. There is no deadline or time limit for healing. I invite you to pay attention to what happens when we switch from the mantra "I will heal one day" to "I am healing."

 

Through a deep and sincere examination of one's own emotions, we are always bound to come up against fear, a very primal and useful emotion, yet one that can at times be overwhelming. When we encounter fear, there is always an opportunity to exercise courage. To face tremendous fear, one must muster tremendous courage. And what does it mean to find within oneself such courage? Fear often fill the void of the unknown when we consider the future. This is a universal experience for humans, but contrary to the famous words of Franklin D. Roosevelt, fear itself is not something to be afraid of. As the neurobiologist Dr. Andrew Huberman has said: "There's no negotiating what fear feels like. There's only negotiating what it means."

How do we respond to the fear not knowing what we will become? Going forward may in this instance mean a complete rebirth. Does a caterpillar know as it enters into chrysalis, that beyond that oblivion will be the ascension to a butterfly? Does a phoenix know, in the moment it becomes engulfed in flames that the ashes will be the source of its rebirth? So much of life is unknown, and we can face this unknown with a compassionate acknowledgement of fear. That is the place where courage is not just a show of bravado, but is essential to carrying. Fear is what gives courage such a potent meaning. The etymology of the word courage shows us that it came from the Latin corage, "of the heart," and that from the Proto-Indo-European "*kerd-" meaning, literally, "heart".

Notice how when we are unsure of the future, fear has an icy grip around the heart. It is thus from the heart that we must draw the courage to face such fear. Deep, deep, within all of our hearts, is the courage to face it, if we could only dig deep enough to reach it. And interestingly, love can also be found in our hearts, in infinite measure. When faced with that which threatens to constrict and bind the heart, how fitting that it is exactly in the heart where we draw that which can release us.While courage empowers us to face the fear, love empowers us to accept and embrace oneself through all the suffering. And perhaps as well the love can be oriented towards life itself. The greater the love, the greater the reason to live. Not only is courage borne out of the same heart as love—fear can be like a mirror of love, for where there is great fear, something we love is hiding. Can you not say that the more you love something, the more you may fear losing it? Far better, however, to frame it so: the greater the love, the greater the call to courage. We wish not to live dominated by fear, but rather to see fear as an opportunity to become something greater. What is it like to love courageously?

In the face of an unknown span of time to heal from the trauma that has taken place, patience allows us to make it through. Patience alone can make us capable of enduring any span of time. But combined with love and courage we become capable of far more than just enduring, but of transforming. Patience is not just a noble stance, but it is a genuine act of kindness towards oneself. Imagine for a moment the patience it would take to grow as a great oak, over many decades. If the little acorn saw the great oak and thought to itself, "my god! I could never grow to such heights!" or "I need to be a great oak NOW," oh how hellish would its existence be. But it is not so. With the steady progress it is so well-known for, an acorn becomes a sapling becomes a tree, patiently lasts through storm and sun, winter and summer, becoming not only a great being unto itself, but a home for many other creatures who seek shelter. Sometimes a branch may fall. Disease may come and go, and the tree endure countless other abuses, yet still it may grow strong. (It seems comical to imagine if the growing tree were to compare itself to its neighbor who got a little more sun and didn't suffer the loss of a limb, saying "how tragic and unfortunate my life is. I wish I could be lucky like that tree over there.) I wonder if you, too, could be as sturdy and patient as the acorn/oak. The acorn is the oak, one cannot exist without the other. What if you, like the acorn, contain something great within you?

The willpower that it takes to carry on after a life-altering traumatic event comes from a deep place. It comes when we least expect it at times. In my experiences with trauma, I have found it came from an unyielding ardor for those things that I love most in life. At first, I lamented that I would no longer be able to experience life as I once knew it. But in that lamentation I found that it was not experiencing life a certain way that I love, but rather my love is for life itself. The part of us that says "I will not give up." "Nothing can stop me!" is a deep reservoir of power to move forward into the infinity of possibility. The fact that you are right here, right now, tells me that you have what it takes to keep on moving. In his book, Frankl goes so far as to say "the salvation of man is through love and in love." I venture to say that it is not only love of life, love of those things we love, that can empower us to move forward, but perhaps more importantly it is love that allows us to be where we are and who we are. And as Socrates would say, wherever there is love, there is surely beauty.

So in what ways can suffering be meaningful? 

Those of us who have truly suffered are able to understand each other all the more. When we have a painful experience, we feel not just the pain itself, but the experience of suffering the pain. No single one of us suffers alone. The origin of the word "compassion" reveals a sense of "passion" that comes from the Greek word "pathos" (suffering). Passion is that which we must undergo. When we go through it together, this is the true meaning of compassion. To see another and feel their pain and wish to alleviate it. To see the suffering of another and wish it to gain meaning for them, for it not to be too cruel or too hard. This is compassion. How much more powerful has your compassion become as a result of your suffering? Would you ever truly understand another person's suffering if you had not yourself suffered?

And it is not just our compassion that is empowered when we suffer, but also it is only natural for wisdom to shine through. Consider for a moment, when you see the sorrow of another, how is it that you understand their sorrow if not for the sorrow you yourself have felt? Truly consider this. Our fellow-feeling connects us to one another. How do you understand another's joy, if not for the joy you have felt yourself? Another's pain? Another's pleasure? Another's love? Another's feeling of isolation? How curious that loneliness can actually bring us closer together. By feeling the pain of isolation, we know the pain that someone else goes through, thus forming an instant connection. Without the need to evaluate or decide how to respond, we immediately know another's pain or joy through our innate sense of fellow-feeling. And the more variety and intensity of the emotions we feel, the more potent becomes this sense of fellow-feeling, which, truly, is a form of wisdom. We are biologically equipped to feel all of these emotions. And we are cognitively equipped to ask ourselves what they mean to us, and morally equipped to decide how we are going to act alongside and in response to them.

It is abundantly clear that we are in this together, and for those who read this right now and myself as I write this: we made it! We made it in the sense of coming so far, and we made it in the sense of creating a life that led us to this moment, right here and now. 

In the quote I put at the beginning of this article, the reader is asked to consider how they would react if they knew this life would repeat itself endlessly. Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote that quote, lived an extraordinarily painful life. He suffered truly debilitating migraines which lasted for hours or even days, and digestive trauma from a very young age. He had bad eyesight, fainted, and had fits. He had to be very careful of what he ate. By the age of 34, he was almost completely blind.

This man is the author of a philosophy that encourages us to say Yes to life. To live creatively and artistically. To find and create meaning even when the meanings that the world told you all go up in smoke or turned out to be lies. To have a light heart, and an abundance of vigor and creativity that makes one dance and make music. This is the world Nietzsche believed was possible for at least some people. Is it possible for you? I wonder who gets to make that decision? Who really has the power?

The idea of a life that repeats itself endlessly, again and again through all eternity: this is also known as the Eternal Recurrence. If we suppose that existence continues on without end or beginning, then it is only inevitable that events will repeat themselves. If life is eternal in this way, the challenge is to say Yes to life. Not only to live life in a way that we could say Yes to it repeating, but to so dispose ourselves that was are capable of doing so. But there's more—with an eternal existence there also come infinite possibilities. We live always in this infinity of possibility. Our allies of  patience, love, and courage help us to open the portal of transformation. Wisdom is of course inevitable to those who live this with awareness, with open eyes. And what else beyond that may we find with our—open hearts?

---

1 In this workshop I will not ask anyone to remember the details of their trauma, as that is a process someone should choose to undergo of their own volition, and ideally with the support of a trained professional. I am not a professional in trauma coaching: I am a philosopher.^↩

Reject Conformity to Unleash Your True Power

This was a preview of the workshop I presented at Gulch Fest in September of 2022.

Often in society we are expected to fit into the shape that is set out for us. There are some who say that society best functions when people fit into their roles. An argument I have heard is that "people feel safe and comfortable in an environment where everyone behaves in a predictable way, therefore deviance is seen as dangerous." Whether someone overtly subscribes to such a belief or not, it seems common for people tend to dress and act in a similar way to their peers. Is it simply our tendency to acclimate to cultural customs, or is it a result of social pressure? 

Traveling in India, I found myself surrounded by people who had very different customs than those I am used to. To give a couple examples: People eat with their hands there (but only the right hand--never the left). It is expected of all drivers to honk their horns constantly when driving to ensure other drivers are aware of their presence. As a foreigner, I was not expected to emulate my local peers, but when I did, it often pleased them. There is a kind of joy in fitting in and participating in the same set of rules. And perhaps a kind of security as well, beyond the comfort of avoiding unwanted attention. There is a joy in feeling food before eating it--the size and texture of each bite. And if someone decided to drive in that country without constantly honking their horn, they would endanger themselves and others, especially when coming around sharp turns on narrow mountain roads without guardrails. And obviously, we conform to the rules of the road in whatever place we find ourselves so as to ensure the safety of others. This is intentional and prudent. But at what point does the joy end and the pressure begin? There is a dark side to conformity, and I venture to say that this begins at the point when our conformity becomes mindless. Let's explore that.

I have encountered those who use the term "weird" as an insult. Those same kinds of people who praise those who are normal. But what is normal? Today it means something like "common" or "usual," but the word "normal" evolved from a Latin word: "normalis," which meant "conforming to a set of rules." Normalis was a derivation from the word "norma," which denoted a carpenter's square. 

The word "weird," which today tends to refer to that which is noticeably unusual, has a much more interesting origin... In the Middle Ages, the "weird" was that which was capable of controlling or changing fate. Our current usage of the word as an adjective actually developed from the use to describe the mythological figures known as the "Weird Sisters" who controlled human destiny. If we trace the roots further back to the Proto-Indo-European root "*wer-" meaning "to turn" or "to bend," we find this is also the root of the Old English term "weorðan" which meant "to become."

Today we don't really acknowledge the innate power of weirdness. Could that power be what the normies are so afraid of?

The image that comes to mind when I compare the etymology of "normal" and "weird" is a juxtaposition of evenly chopped and straightened wood vs the twisting and turning of a gnarled tree. This leads me to recall a passage from the Chuang Tzu: 

"If we must use curve and plumb line, compass and square to make something right, this means cutting away its inborn nature; if we must use cords and knots, glue and lacquer to make something firm, this means violating its natural Virtue." 

How might we understand Natural Virtue? In the scale of a person's life, a set of evenly cut wood beams fashioned together with nails and glue is a great deal more useful than a twisted bristlecone pine on a mountaintop. Yet can you think of any wooden human-made structure that, without any maintenance, on the exposed peak of a mountain, can survive for 5,000 years? Taoists would say that Natural Virtue is something that falls outside of the boundaries of human life.

When faced with the weird, trying to make it normal is cutting away its natural Virtue. Interesting how the word "normal" implicitly contains a sense of conformity. Without a set of rules or standards to measure oneself by, there is, in fact no meaning to normal, and no distinction from weird. How do we respond when we encounter the weird? When you look inside yourself and find something gnarled and twisted--ugly, even, by the standards we are in the habit of setting, does it frighten you? How do you respond?

Conformity as we understand it today is when we change what we are to match the shape or appearance of something else. This can take place in fashion, behavior, musical style... Almost any aspect of how we present ourselves can be done in a way that does or does not conform. "Conform" comes from the Latin word "conformis," which means "similar in shape." This was derived from the word "conformare" which literally meant "to modify." So in the very origin of the word "conform" is the implication of a modification of that which we really are. However, unique as each of us is, conformity is always an effort or an endeavor which can never entirely be realized. The conformer seeks to change their appearance to match the appearance of something else. To truly conform, one would have to be able to grasp the essence of that to which one conforms. And as Kant and others have shown, that essence remains eternally ungraspable for finite beings such as ourselves.

There is a way in which conformity can be rather stifling--not just of the individual's spirit, but also of the potential thriving of society. Perhaps the thriving of society is in the thriving of the individual.

Each of us is a unique manifestation, and each has a unique gift to give to the world. I think sometimes these gifts hide beneath the influences we constantly encounter, but they reveal themselves when we allow ourselves to explore and be what we genuinely are. Our parents, our teachers and role models growing up, the people who expect us to look a certain way on the street, our bosses at our jobs, and even our most trusted friends and loved ones have expectations of us--whether for ill or well-meaning intent. Part of what allows us to run efficiently as a society is our tendency to meet one another's expectations. But life is not bounded by anyone's expectations. To devote oneself to living this way is to attempt to capture the boundless. It's like trying to fit the ocean into a cup.

When we ask ourselves deep questions: "What do I want?" "Who am I?" "What is important to me?" and really focus deeply, we may find that we don't conform to other's expectations. Yet isn't it interesting that once someone has an idea of what kind of person they'd like to be, there again is the ideal to which one may conform. It is exactly outside of this structured realm of expecting to be a certain way that we can truly, radically, create what we are in a powerful way--and yet creativity seems to gain its meaning from a degree of limitation.

Take for example a musical genre. A set of patterns and conventions that in a sense creates a boundary for creativity. We love the ones who push these boundaries, yet it is also quite respectable to stay snug within. Yet within a genre are infinite possible variations. I think part of the fun of exploring a genre is that it directs our attention to another avenue of Infinity. When people think an artist is only playing the same thing over and over, or lacking their own unique spin, they are often regarded as tired or boring. Fashion seems to function in a similar way. Yet with music and fashion, there are conservative types who balk at the ones who push the boundaries. Perhaps the degree of conformity one is comfortable with changes from person to person, and from one domain to another. People are much less comfortable with discussions about the laws and regulations of society, especially when people advocate for particularly radical shifts. But what feels comfortable and safe is not always what is good...

When in touch with what we really are, we can ask ourselves: "how do I want to serve my community?" Coexisting in relationship with others, a sincere desire to serve and benefit one's fellows, can itself be limitless, if we shake off the expectation of how it is supposed to look. Some may fear that without the societal pressure to conform to predesignated roles, certain jobs just won't get done. But the thing about necessary tasks is that someone ends up doing them eventually. Whether we take turns taking out the trash, we are asked by someone else to lend a hand, or someone volunteers to always do it, my point is that we don't need to define ourselves by the tasks we do or don't complete. The truly shining radiance of being comes when we follow what lights us up from within.

Gathered together as creative co-hearts, sensitive to the desires, feelings, and needs of one another, we can operate in harmony or discord. Power is the ability to do or make. And how much greater our ability when it comes from deep within. When we center ourselves in the infinite fountain of our beings, then power becomes infinite. The difference between falling in love from your heart and just getting married because it's the "thing to do" is not only profound--it's easy for people to see. So why then do people so seldom see the difference between acting from the very center of your being and acting a certain way just because "it's the way to be."? Perhaps the detriment of conformity begins where it starts to impede sincerity. I wonder where in your life the desire to conform has overruled sincerity?

The best friends in my life have invited me to try new things and encouraged me to be my best self. That is different from pressuring someone into doing something. Sometimes the pressure from others leads us into discord with ourselves. Taken too far, the push that is often needed to do something one otherwise might not do, can become a stifling pressure. Sometimes, you may not realize you are smothering yourself under your own pressure. But an individual can be in harmony with their true self. And when we come together as harmonious beings, we create a harmonious resonating frequency. When you get on the dance floor and start strutting your stuff, it gets easier for others to jump in. Are they conforming, or are they inspired by your courage, excited by the new ideas they want to try? If we are going to set examples for each other, let's set examples of shining in our most beautiful rainbow lights.

One of the most inspiring things for me is to watch my fellow dancers doing their unique performances. Especially those who have worked at perfecting their styles to a high degree of excellence. This is why one of the best parts of gloving (a dance style involving hand and finger movements, deriving its name from the gloves that have light-up fingertips and/or palms often used by its performers) is "trading shows." We literally encounter each other and do something amazing and special for each other, both learning and enjoying. Or in a dance showcase with others doing their carefully practiced routines, each person expresses themself so uniquely in a way that really reflects aspects of who they are--from their song choice down to the way in which they move. Seeing people fully express themselves is one of my favorite things to encounter.

When I say that each one of us is unique, do not confuse it with being separate. Each of us grows from the Mother Earth, connected in the deepest depths of our being. In developing to our fullness, we shine forth in an infinite variety of radiations. No one aside from me can go the exact same way that I have gone. And even these words you read now ring in your mind a different tune than in another who reads these. This undeniable truth of uniqueness can be interpreted to form the conceptual scheme of "one and another." When we settle so deeply into this concept of being a separate self, we lose our sense of connectedness with all. Lost, alone, afraid. Striving to reunite, yet so enamored with the forms, we zoom in to the outward appearance of another. To match the form we conform. This desire to fit into a specific group, to match into a specific identity, is none other than a striving to find the "others" and be the "same," together in the same conceptual prison... But what happens if we tear down those bars entirely? Where, then, do we stand, when we have emerged from the abyss of conceptual divisions? What happens when we stop conforming to an idea, and start expressing ourselves with sincerity from the core of our beings? Might we, in finding what really, deeply connects us, find what makes us each so unique? True uniqueness is closer than anything to true togetherness.

"Who Are You Really?" A Semiotic Spin on Selfhood

This post pertains to the workshop I taught at Gulch Fest on the morning of September 11, 2021.

I have since published a video which can be viewed here.

I have heard that Sri Ramana Maharshi was known for encouraging self-enquiry as a method of self-realization and ultimately, liberation. While I have not studied his teachings in-depth, upon learning this, I began to contemplate the centrality of the way we understand the self to everything else in our world of meaning. To use a technical term from the discipline of Semiotics, in each being's Umwelt, there is always a self in some form or another. It is the one thing we cannot get away from... But I view it in a semiotic way--self is not a thing, but a process.

To speak about what we are is not to give a teaching in the ordinary sense of the word, as it is a sort of knowledge that is already available to all of us. It is also not the sort of thing that can be fully encapsulated in words--nor in thoughts. I am inclined to think that what we really are is far more vast than our limited capacities, let alone languages, could ever fully grasp. However, I have found that it is possible to formulate words in such a way as to trigger those who listen to remember what they already know. Another powerful use of language in the endeavor of self-knowing is to describe and relate significant aspects of how we encounter ourselves in the world. This self-encountering can be described as the phenomenology of self. By understanding the phenomenology of self, we may be in a better position to understand what we are.

It is my opinion that good semiotics is essentially based in phenomenology. I say this because the phenomenological stance is where we orient ourselves towards the world in such a way that we take care to regard things as they present themselves to us moment-by-moment. The phenomenological stance understands that objects as-such are inferred from the sum of our experiences and memories. An example of this is that when we understand the rain cloud in the sky as a sign that it is about to rain, we do not just see the cloud that has the meaning of rain. We see the way the cloud is moving towards us, and we notice its steadily changing color and shape as it moves through the sky. We notice also the change in the force and direction of the wind, the shift in atmospheric pressure and humidity, and all kinds of other phenomena, undeniable aspects of experience that stand out to us. Were we to see the cloud from the top down, it would perhaps carry a different meaning. I recall flying over North India in to New Delhi during a particularly heavy monsoon season. The clouds towered to vast heights and stretched out in all directions as far as the eye could see. Through my encounter with this phenomenon, I came to know the meaning of the monsoon in terms of its incomprehensible vastness. Then later on, when I journeyed to Tirunelveli in search of a particular Temple of Aadigurunatha, the monsoon had not yet passed in this southern part of India. I found that the streets were so terribly flooded that one could barely navigate by any means without wading. When I made it to the temple I sought, I found myself instead looking at a greatly widened river. The temple is known to exist underwater during the flooding of the monsoon, but there was some part of me that couldn't comprehend this until I saw it. I fell to my knees in both disappointment and awe. Here I encountered the monsoon again, as one directly beneath its constant downpour. I am sure there are many other ways the monsoon presents itself that are much better known by those who live with it as a way of life. The monsoon is not just the towering and expansive cumulonimbus clouds and the flooded streets, and yet it also cannot be expressed without those phenomena. It is only through the encounter with phenomena that we come to abstract the named thing. And from the named thing, we do not encounter the phenomena--but only the name.

So to return to self: to speak of a "phenomenology of self" is to look at the self not as a given object or quality, but rather as a set of phenomena bearing significance. We encounter the various phenomena that make up the "self," in so many different ways, and it is from these phenomena that we abstract the idea of "self." Like the monsoon, the self is not just the phenomena by which we encounter it, yet it cannot be expressed without those phenomena. And from the name "self," we do not encounter the phenomena of self. But uniquely, the self is abstracted from a set of phenomena which bear forth in ways unlike the monsoon and unlike anything else. Through language we can get a glimpse. The Proto-Indo-European word that our current word "self" seems to derive from, is actually a variation of the root "*s(w)e-", a reflexive third-person pronoun referring back to the subject of a sentence. The very notion of self as we understand it may have arisen out of a peculiarity of language that works in a subject-predicate form. This seems to work well with Jean-Paul Sartre's focus in "The Transcendence of the Ego," where his thesis is that "I" is a quality that arises in reflection on the past, when attempting to describe the central point of experience. If I am folding the laundry and recall doing so, the word "I" is what we use as a descriptor of the one doing the folding.¹

A good way of explaining it came to me just the other day as I was walking in nature. I had played a ritual song that I didn't exactly think of as beautiful, but I realized that I wasn't playing it with the intention of making it beautiful. I was playing it to have some kind of power. It is often that we think of music we hear as beautiful, but beauty is a semiotic process, not a quality that occurs in things. I go more in-depth into beauty in my article on love, but for now it will suffice to say that beauty is a meaning derived through the interactive process of interpretation between a sign and its observer. So it is that one song may be thought of as beautiful by one listener and ugly by another listener. The evaluation differs based both on variations in the notes and rhythms of the song and on variations in the disposition of the observer. It is possible someone would hear my ritual song as beautiful, but as both a performer and listener, I wasn't particularly struck by its beauty, but more so by its power. 

So now let us think of songs from our lives that are very meaningful to us. We all surely have at least one song that we feel a connection to, that in some ways may even define us. The meaning of a song to someone may change over time as they grow and have new experiences and memories. Just as if the notes of the song were changed around and it would become a different song with a different meaning, if the person encountering the song is different, the meaning changes. The meaning happens between the listener and the song, and while it may be conveyed differently by different musicians, one can never know exactly what effects it will have on different sets of ears.

Now think of other key memories that constitute formative experiences of your "self". You surely could not think of every one of them right now, and the memories you pick might change depending on your mood and the day. Perhaps, just as a song can be performed differently every day, a self can be performed differently every day. Perhaps, just as a song can have a different meaning when being encountered by you on a different day, you can have a different meaning when being encountered by you on a different day. But what's this? Can you encounter yourself?

Just as the song is not possible without the listener who hears it, so is it that the self is not possible without someone to encounter it. In other words: just as the song really occurs as a meaning/interpretive process, so does the self occur as a meaning/interpretive process. If the self is semiosis, then perhaps there is indeed something we can understand about it when we do semiotics. 

But who is it that interprets the self?

---

1 It should come as no surprise that Sartre was himself deeply steeped in the phenomenological tradition. Much of his work on this subject is a direct response to the work of his predecessor (and oft-named father of phenomenology), Edmund Husserl.^↩

Hope vs Fear

 A battle between phantoms... but must it be fought?

 

When we hope for something, we wish for things to turn out the way we want them to. Yet in hoping, we imply that there is another way we very much wish for things not to turn out. The strong aversion we feel for the possible scenario we wish to avoid can be characterized as fear. It is for this reason, I think, that hope and fear are so often posed in opposition to one another. But while it is clear that there is a relationship between the two, I think it is mistaken to infer from this that hope and fear are opposites. If we look at them more closely, we will find a relationship of a significantly different kind.

 

Hope is quite strongly urged and cherished by many folks these days. It is all too often that we hear the admonition, "don't lose hope." When it comes to fear, the general tone I hear is "do not give in to fear," or at times I hear the even blunter phrase, "have no fear." These attitudes are at times so strongly held that they seem to have become stigma, both against a hopeless disposition and in favor of a fearless disposition. This quickly develops into a dogma that esteems hope as a high virtue and derides fear as a blemish to be scorned. With these opening remarks in mind, I'll state outright that in this article, I aim to clear the air up around three main points:

 

1) The supposed opposition of hope vs fear. I argue that they are not, in fact, opposites, and that conceiving them as such is based on a misapprehension of what they really are.

2) The excessive and earnest praise of hoping and hopefulness. (Taken to the extreme, this risks detaching people from reality and leaving them deeply dissatisfied or worse.)

3) The disdain and dismissing of fear. (Taken to the extreme, this reeks of toxic positivity--the attitude that says to wash away all "negative" emotions and "just focus on the positive.")

To attend to these three points will require us to engage in a deep semiotic exploration. And in this exploration we will surely discover much more than what we set out to find.

~

Our noun for hope comes from the Old English verb "hopian," meaning "to have trust or confidence that something will be so." The modern use of the word is more commonly used in a sense of: "to wish for a possible event," as in "I hope the weather will be nice tomorrow," though it can also indicate a kind of trust or confidence when used in a certain sense, such as in "I have high hopes for his project."  While it may not be obvious, hope always directs us at the future. We have to look deeper at the usage of the word to see this. It is obvious when we say "I hope I get the job." But when we say "I hope you had a good time at the party," it sounds like a hope for the past. But what the statement implies is "I hope you will tell me you had a good time" or "I hope I don't find out you had an awful time." In a similar way, it may sound like a hope for the present when someone says "I hope it is safe to camp here," but what is implied in that is "I hope we pass the night undisturbed and wake up well-rested tomorrow" or "I hope we don't wake up to an ambush." When we see past the misleading uses of the word, it is clear hope always creates an anticipation or expectation of what is yet to come. Hope lives in the future, and it actually requires uncertainty. Just consider this: if we had an exact knowledge of everything that would happen in the future, hope would be meaningless.

 

Fear, on the other hand, came from a word denoting calamity and sudden danger. It is intense and present in this moment. Fear comes from proto-Germanic "*feraz," meaning "danger," and even older is the Proto-Indo-European "*per-," meaning "to try, risk." Much of our very old language has evolved from being literal to being more abstract and figurative, and so has fear evolved from its root words denoting danger (the tiger or crocodile waiting in ambush) and risk itself (drawing closer to the edge of a steep and high cliff), to become a word that describes the emotion associated with these experiences. 

 

Right away, we can see that hope is a cognitive process of forming an expectation of the as-of-yet-unknown, whereas fear is a strong emotion that may be focused on either a present or future danger. We can also see, as I described in the intro, that rather than behaving as opposites, hope and fear seem quite inseparable. For example, one can imagine encountering a dangerous predatory animal and feeling immediate fear in this interaction, while also thinking, "I hope I will find a way out of this." Similarly, one can imagine, upon turning into a darkened side street, having the thought go through their head, "I hope I don't encounter anyone who wishes me harm as I go this way" while being afraid that such an assailant lurks in the shadows. (If they were opposites, it would be impossible for them to both occur simultaneously, as they do in these examples.) It looks like hope is one of the possible reactions we can have to fear. There seems to be a strong link here--more on that later.

 

Let's take a moment and consider things in light of the future. One thing (and perhaps the only thing) that is clear about the future is that it is uncertain. In the face of uncertainty, we often feel fear. We can also choose to have hope in the face of an uncertain future, and this can distract us from our fear about it, but hope is not an antidote to fear. Still, hope seems at first glance to be the opposite of  fear because of the way that it can distract us from it. The thing is, hope fixates on the future--and fixation on the future can breed something very closely related to fear... There are many things in our world that we may be afraid of that we do not have complete control over, from sudden illness to political leaders making dangerous decisions to just the thought of getting in a car accident...

 

But fearing uncertainty in a world of constant uncertainty leads to constant fear. 

 

This backdrop of fear about things that could go wrong but haven't happened yet, we call anxiety. Whereas pure fear comes from the presence of a perceived danger, anxiety seems to be a fear about the possibility of danger. (And since we can never truly know all the possibilities, it is not uncommon for people to be chronically anxious.) Our word "anxious" descends from the Latin "anxius," meaning "solicitous, uneasy, troubled in mind." This word evolved from the older "angere" which literally meant "to choke, squeeze," and this descended from a Proto-Indo-European root word "*angh-" which meant "tightness, narrowness." This much older origin of our current use of anxiety seems to still have some bearing today, as when someone feels anxious, they feel constricted and tight. I can say from personal experience that an anxiety attack involves shortness of breath, and relief from anxiety feels like being able to expand and breathe again after being suffocated. But I think we can broaden the sense of "tightness" and "narrowness" to convey the way anxiety affects our disposition towards the world. When we are anxious, we focus on how things could go wrong, narrowing our view of the situation, and attempting to tighten our grip on it. Yet when a fist tries and tries to tighten itself around nothing, the only thing that might come out of it is a muscle-strain. Anxiety feels like trying to get control of something uncontrollable--the ever uncertain future. Anxiety is a cousin of fear, but it does not arise from fear itself, but rather is a type of fear that happens when we fixate on possible outcomes. Again, we must be aware of how the mind works. Anxiety sometimes evaluates the past that already slipped by, trying to figure out "how did I screw up this time?", "what did I do wrong?" But what the anxious mind is really doing in this situation is trying to protect us. The overly 'helpful' mind thinks, "if I can figure out what we did wrong back there, we can avoid messing up again." "If I had only done Y instead of X, we would be so much happier right now." Playing through a specific memory over and over again is never going to change what happened--"but perhaps," thinks anxiety, "we can do better next time if we figure out how we failed before." Again, as with hope, we need only consider: would anxiety have any bearing if we were absolutely certain of everything that was coming up in the future? Anxiety, like hope, is rooted in uncertainty.

 

Isn't it curious how hope narrows our view to fixate on a favorable particular outcome. Isn't it interesting that when we are in hope, we tighten around the uncertain situation, to try and make the hope come true? Yet despite these similarities, the feeling of being full of hope is far different from having an anxiety attack! ...But what happens when that hope falls in jeopardy? What happens when our very highest hopes seem like they are about to be undermined? What happens when we feel like we are starting to lose control? And what happens when we can't get that control back?

I've made it quite clear by now that hope is inevitably tied to fear and anxiety, even though it is not the opposite of either one. So what, then, is its opposite? Ok, as promised...

 

Despair is actually the opposite of hope. If we look at the Latin roots of "despair," we find "de-" (a root meaning "lack" or "lacking") + "sperare," ( literally "hope"), so we get a word that literally means "a lack of hope." But despair is more than just a lacking of hope, because this presupposes that hope is normally present. But just as despairing is not a base state of consciousness, neither is hoping. If we look more closely at the root of "despair," we actually find that "sperare" is closely related to "speed," and both "speed" and "sperare" can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European "*spes," meaning "prosperity," also "fat" and "success."

A lack of success... A lack of prosperity. A peculiar worry regarding the future, (but then, are not all worries cast in that way?). Just as hope looks to the future fixating on success (sperare), so does despair look to the future fixating on failure. Both are thought-patterns fixating on future outcomes. It is curious how the workings of the mind can themselves stimulate powerful emotions in us. Despair can cause a fear reaction in the body, while hope can cause a confidence or sureness. But the cognitive exercises of hope and despair turn us toward the future and away from the present. The "fear" stimulated by despair is more like an anxiety, while the "confidence" stimulated by hope is more like wishful thinking. Despair seldom fails to produce a feeling of fear--and this curious power of our minds is another reason why people so often confuse fear as being the opposite of hope--when really it is despair that is truly hope's opposite! And it looks like the opposite of fear is really confidence, sureness, the feeling we are safe. But when turned towards the unknowable future, this kind of confidence is only a hope--it can never go any further than hope. And whether we hope or despair, we encourage fear. In hope, we fear that what was hoped for will not come to be, while in despair we fear that what we despair of is coming to be. (I keep coming back to the relationship between hope and fear, and I will unfold this fully when we get to the deeper analysis of fear later on.)

 

And none of this is to say that I think we should never hope. Indeed, hope can be a very good teacher--because when we indulge in hopeful thoughts, there is always some thing or situation we are hoping for. To hope with sincerity is to envision what it is you truly long for. But as hope is a fantasy, it is not a stable place to stay. In this present moment, we may work to move towards a future we seek. And hope helps us to idealize and visualize such a future. The same could be said of despair. When you come crashing down from the high platform of hope, there you have fallen into the abyss of despair. The despair also teaches us. It teaches us about what we dread. In despair we get to see the things that most terrify us. Indeed, fear is not the opposite of hope, but despair can show us what we fear... because in despair we feel we are falling headlong towards it.

In the realm of imagination we can come to hope or despair. But it is always from here in the present that I can evaluate, decide, and (if I have the wherewithal and resources) act to bring myself closer to that ideal I hoped for and steer away from the horror that despair warned me about. To hope implies that what we hope for is yet to be obtained; to despair implies that what we despair of is yet to be suffered... To put certainty into either one is to give much more credence to this sense of not-yet-being... It is just not very sturdy ground to stand on. I want to base my foundation in the present that does not know the future but remains open to all of its possibilities. Hope and despair are guests who come into my home but do not stay. In the face of uncertainty, rather than hope or despair, I am more wont to encourage faith. But you can read my piece on faith if you want to hear more on that--now we are going to look at what has been looming in the background: we must now face our fear.

 

One thing stays true about fear through the ages... Fear tells us we are facing a risk or danger, and gives us the impetus to respond (often by either fleeing or destroying the source of the fear.) Even the smallest creature could cause a fear reaction, such as when we see a colorfully-marked spider that is likely venomous, or a tick that could spread disease. Only the most disciplined person could repress the very real urge to get away from the potential danger, (and I suspect that, faced with real danger, even someone who appears totally stoic on the surface could still be dealing with an internal chaos stimulated by fear). As one of the most basic emotions, fear has an immediacy to us, and for good reason as well. Imagine if you did not have a response of fear to looking over a cliff or finding a wildly colored arthropod inhabiting your sleeping quarters. The extreme of this would be you neglect to have caution and go tumbling over the edge or get woken up with a deadly venom coursing through your veins. Fear is what impels us to step back from the edge or set up a permethrin-infused mosquito net. Fear motivates us to respond to danger by either avoiding it or modifying the environment to eliminate the danger. Fear drives us to take measures to protect ourselves and those we care about.

So far so good. At the surface, there is nothing strange about fear, and it in fact appears quite natural, as it is observable as a self-preserving feature of the emotional landscape of at the very least, all of the other mammals. Yet to only discuss it in this way would be to sidestep the deep cultural aversion to fear, as famously expressed by Dwight D. Eisenhower when he said in his inaugural address that "we have nothing to fear but fear itself." Indeed, it is by the very way that fear impels us to alter our behavior that it can have a more sinister side to it. Fear has an effect of dulling our reason and pushing us into action. Taken too far, the practical fear of particularly dangerous spiders becomes an extreme panic at the sight of any spider, even harmless ones. Some people cannot even handle the sight of any arthropod at all. 

 

At a basic level, fear is jumping back from a snake, but at the complex level of our society, it is avoiding a risky social interaction, or joining a crowd in chasing away a threat. Again, fear taken too far in these situations could mean avoiding even slightly risky social situations even if they might offer great rewards, or joining a witch hunt that targets innocent people. These examples of extreme fear are often characterized as phobias, and are generally regarded as mental illness. Phobias are what happen when fear is taken to the extreme, but it can cause problems even when it is not so extreme as to cause immediate panic: one particularly insidious feature of fear lies not in the emotion itself, but in the way it is manipulated. Many manipulators have used this method of invoking a strong fear in people in order to coerce them to act one way or another, because when people are truly afraid, their next actions become more predictable.

 

Some examples:

 

-Notice how people are kept in line in society, adhering to their conventional (and often severely limiting) roles, by the subtle overhanging fear that everything would go to Hell if they didn't. Frightened people won't deviate and try new things. 

 

-Notice how people can be coaxed into war (or at least being supportive of a war) when they are made to be afraid of another country, the "outsiders," the "barbarians," even if going to war may not actually be in anyone's best interests (except for the leaders urging it).

 

-Notice how the news channels broadcast messages of fear. Yet people who are afraid feel they must "watch the news to keep track of what is going on." When they watch the news, they only become more afraid, which leads them to feel the need to be more prepared, so they go back and watch more news... ad infinitum. (An effective marketing scheme, predatory as it may be.)

 

Thus, as clever as Eisenhower's phrase is, its irony does not escape me--and I suspect it did not escape him either. For in fearing fear, people still have something to fear. The people taken in by that speech may have thought, "well we had best get busy at eliminating the potential sources of fear, so that we are never afraid." A black widow nesting in your home can actually be dangerous, so we eliminate the danger by moving it outside (or for those of us more violently inclined, throwing a shoe at it). By making fear out as a danger in itself, (effectively making fear fearsome), we make it something to be avoided or eliminated. But is fear even the kind of phenomenon that can be eliminated or avoided? I haven't seen this work with any other primal emotions.

It is clear that those who are ruled by fear give up a great deal of their agency--in other words, they become less capable of making effective judgments and sound choices. Bearing this in mind, I certainly sympathize with those who want nothing to do with fear. There is no shortage in our culture today of people who implore us to "choose love instead of fear" or "have no fear, trust the universe." They have at least chosen to turn away from fear, but I wonder if these militant anti-fear folks are not only focused on the extreme examples and ignoring the ways fear helps and teaches us. And I also can't help but wonder: are these well-intentioned folks not falling into Eisenhower's trap? Are they not guilty of fearing fear itself? Are they not, perhaps, as little as they may like to admit it, afraid of what would happen if they let fear rule their lives? Ironic indeed. It would seem that as we humans presently find ourselves, we have not (yet) been able to escape our mammal brains. 

 

Maybe we can't get around the fact that fear is built into our very biology, and for reasons I have discussed above, it may not be wise to dispose of it, (if such a possibility even exists). The trick, then, seems to be in how we respond to fear.

 

One way of responding is to fall back on hope. If we are surrounded by danger, why not hope that we can get out of it? This is actually quite a common response, and I think the apparent palliative effect of hope in situations of great fear may be another culprit behind the ubiquitous (and false) dichotomy between hope and fear. It is not unreasonable, when facing a difficult and fearsome situation, to choose to focus on hoping things will turn out alright instead of being afraid that they won't. But there are problems with this approach. For one, hope, being a wish or expectation for a possible outcome, takes us out of our present awareness where we may actually be able to do something about the thing we are afraid of. But another, less obvious criticism, lies beneath. Hoping for a scenario implies, as I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, the fear that its opposite will come to pass. Let's take a deeper look at this connection: While it may be possible to achieve our hope, it is also possible that we will never reach what we hope for. Thus, the greater the hope, the greater the fear that accompanies it--and they can never be detached from one another. Rather than being the opposite of hope--fear is the shadow that follows it. If someone has a hope that reaches to the stars, it casts a shadow of fear that could consume their whole world. 

 

This is not to mention that when hoping in the face of fear, there still remains the danger that one hoped to avoid in the first place. Add to this real danger the potential danger of a failed hope, and we now face a twofold danger. Hope mutates fear/danger by amplifying it beyond a mere present danger into a whole array of possible future dangers. It is like adding wood to a fire in an effort to smother it. Thus, in verse 13 of the Stephen Mitchell translation of the Tao Te Ching, it reads: "Hope is as hollow as fear."..."Hope and fear are both phantoms / that arise from thinking of the self." Fear is a self-preserving reaction to a dangerous situation, and hope yearns for this same self to find itself in a more desirable situation. The more energy and attention we put into our hopes or fears, the more we reinforce our separate ego-identities, and the more we care for this ego-self, the more weight our hopes and fears carry. It becomes a vicious cycle. We need to look deeper than the ego-self if we want to get beneath our fear.

 

What happens when we accept that fear is a part of what we are, and may be part of what has gotten us this far? Perhaps you have heard a proposed choice between love or fear, and been urged to choose love. While love is not the opposite of fear, it looks like it may be a better antidote for fear's debilitating hold than hope. But I am not sure if it is possible to always choose love as a replacement for fear, and if it were possible, that would be denying fear, which still has a valuable place in our lives. I also find it hard to advise someone, when facing a real danger, to show that danger love instead of fear. The terror that compels us to save ourselves when the tiger gives chase is all-consuming, and its usefulness needs no explaining. But remember, the fear we are talking about today is the emotion that arises in response to a perceived danger (which may or may not be truly dangerous). When faced with the emotion of fear, we can be loving, and this love does not need to replace or push out the fear. Might I be so bold as to suggest, that instead of saying "choose love instead of fear," we go even further and start saying, "choose to love fear."? This would certainly be a most radical kind of love... though I must say I prefer love with roots that run deep.

What I suggest is that the troublesome aspect of fear is not so much what it does to us, but rather what we do with it. What I believe is possible is that someone can become more aware of the relationship they have with fear, and through this awareness not be controlled by it. By recognizing when fear arises from a place of stillness, by accepting that it has appeared (hence the love), by listening to what it tells us (while not necessarily allowing it to persuade us), we put ourselves in a position where we actually become freer from fear than if we tried to avoid it altogether. If fear is like the shadow that never leaves us, why are we running from it?

 

And beyond its usefulness as an aid to survival, doesn't fear have something valuable to tell us at a much deeper level? 

 

If you look over a cliff and feel the fear of death as you dwell dangerously close to the edge, does that not tell you that you are afraid of losing your life? So that in this fear, you know you value being alive? Can you imagine what kind of life it would be that you don't feel that fear?

 

Have you ever realized that you very much want to ask someone on a date that you really care about, but you are so, so afraid that you'll lose the connection you already have with them in an awful rejection? But doesn't that fear tell you that your feelings for them are so, so important to you? Can you imagine never meeting someone who makes you feel that kind of fear?

 

And what do we do in the face of this fear, if it is such an important and meaningful aspect of our experience? Rather than urge people to be fearless (which would be as sensible as urging them to run from their shadow), I would prefer to remind us of our capacity for courage. And all the more significant is one's courage when it faces the direst of fear.

 

Samwise Gamgee from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series had to look deep within himself to find the courage that empowered him to face unimaginable dangers. (Image is from an anonymous artist and is available on Pinterest).

 

Courage, the quality of mind that enables one to meet fear and danger head on, evolved from the Old French word "corage," which denoted the innermost feelings associated most often with one's heart. If we trace the lineage of the word further back to its Proto-Indo-European roots, we get the root word "*kerd-", literally meaning "heart." You see, the true opposite of fear is confidence, safety, sureness. But when faced with a real danger, one is anything but safe--and when faced with real fear, one is anything but confident. But when sitting in this fear, one can, after listening, respond to the fear with the resolve to be courageous. Dipping deeply into the strength of one's heart, one may find the courage that does not replace the fear, but is willing to face it. Courageously facing fear does not necessarily mean brashly charging through. When a real danger is present, courage may mean holding the presence of mind to calmly look for an escape. Love becomes the gateway to listen to fear, and listening becomes the gateway to courage. The suggestion here for the fearful ones, then, is not the cliche "have courage," but the radical: show love even to your fear, and then after hearing it out, see what courage you may find--deep within--corage--the heart. Is it a coincidence that love is also universally associated with--the heart?

When I think about everything that comes together to make me who I am, my deepest, most haunting fears end up being indispensable. I don't enjoy feeling these fears. But to reject them or aim for a state where they don't exist would be to reject an important part of myself. As an advocate of radical self-love, it is only sensible that I come to this position, that I may as well love this fear. Fear gives us the opportunity to be courageous, and indeed it is only in the light of our fears that courage gains its significance. As we grow and move forth in life with courage, we may someday find that we have overcome old fears; but, then unforeseen and new fears may lie in wait around the corner, only to give us opportunities for new courage--a never ending adventure. And if with courage welling from deep within the heart we can continue to face our fears--it may indeed sometimes lead us to what we--hoped for. 

Earlier we considered: the greater the hope, the greater the fear. So perhaps the most honest hope requires a most fervent courage--the courage to hope, even though it will imply the fear that this hope may not come to be. I think I have made clear the problems that arise when we let hope or fear be our commanders or solace... But we can accept them as part of ourselves without letting them take us over. And this love that can love both our hopes and our fears comes from the same place as our courage that empowers us to face them.

The greatest mark of courage is someone who, despite a clear danger to themself, will stay and face the situation, even if they do not know what to do or how it will turn out. If we find ourselves sometimes lacking in courage, maybe the place we can start first is to look for love. Maybe instead of looking to our hopes, we can look to our hearts. And maybe, if we do that, we'll find that the courage we never knew we were capable of dwells deeper within us than any hope or fear could ever reach.