Fear

Fear makes a person do funny things.  Not "ha ha" funny, but strange-funny, sad-funny and even tragic-funny.  I have been thinking about this as of late.  Really I have been thinking about this since I killed a baby rattle snake in my yard two weeks ago.  There it was, curled up in the traditional rattle snake coil, except for smaller because it was a baby, no longer than a foot perhaps.  I had been gardening, vigorously pulling weeds in my front yard on a warm San Diego morning when my hand alighted near to the snake and my eyes near to my hand.  The rattling motion of the tail is what caught my attention as it varied from the overall stillness in the background.  The rocks, the dirt even, blended with the snake, but that rattle was shaking like crazy.  I have to admit that I was a little slow in understanding what I was looking at.  This is embarrassing for a person who has mentioned with some pride (on the appropriate occasions of course) that she is the daughter of a biologist and also considers herself to be somewhat savvy when it comes to the various wildlife available in this little nook of Penasquitos Canyon.  Certainly not someone afraid of snakes.  It seems however the moment I realized that what I was gazing at was a rattler I immediately came up with reasons as to why I should kill it.  In the meantime, in order to prove my own rationality was at work, thereby meaning my decision making was clear headed, I stretched out the little snake with the handle of my hand spade.  I contemplated the nose of the snake, the way it's tongue flickered in and out (perhaps smelling me?), it's length and the way it's tail moved though I could not hear any actual rattle noise.  In my rational contemplation of the characteristics of the snake I did allow myself some room to be surprised.  I had never thought of this particular detail before, namely that a baby snake's rattles are not audible because they are not dry enough or big enough to make sound.

Once complete with my various speculations of the snake, (speculations is a generous word for a process that took no more than a minute) I summarily drove the pointed metal part of the hand spade through the rattler's neck, directly behind it's head.  I was surprised that 1) the mouth opened in response and 2) that the dirt beneath the snake and my spade gave way, which made for a less clean cut, if you will.  During this time I continued my reasoning that had commenced with my earlier speculations, that this snake was surely a danger to not only myself, but also my dog Bella.  That even if I took it down the slope of my property and placed it in the canyon, that it would somehow make it's way back up the slope, into my yard and kill either Bella, me or both of us.  After all, as we know, baby rattlers are the deadliest.  They don't know how to control their venom and so inject too much and invariably kill their target.

Once the snake was dead I immediately began to feel shame, but this did not stop me from continuing to pile on more fear laden actions.  Instead of burying the dead snake, so that the thing that it now was, could properly decompose into the earth where it lay and be eaten by the various happy bugs, I subsequently picked it up and plopped it into the garbage can.  Now, I reasoned, it could not attract rodents and other undesirables and wouldn't smell or be dug up by my dog.

Fear.  Not just reactionary, protect-yourself-now kind of fear, the kind of fear that is somewhat forgivable (even if you can feel chagrined about it later, depending on the circumstances), but rationalized, well thought out fear.  I never knew I was capable of that kind of fear.  That is the kind of fear that ends up contemplating the most irrational means for the most improbable ends.  The concentrations camps of Nazi Germany come to immediate mind.  But also the death of Matthew Shepard.  And the pre-emptive war that keeps us safe from something(s) but we're not sure what.  I am, it appears, capable of that kind of fear.  Now I am not saying I could rationalize killing 1000 people tomorrow, but give me time and under the right circumstances, the right "conditions of possibility" perhaps I am no better than George W. Bush or Pat Buchanan or that more "irrational" idiot who accidentally shoots an intruder who turns out to be his wife.

Since that day out in the garden I have determined to arrest my fear.  Come to terms with it.  Understand it.  Not that fear is always useless, but I have come to believe that much of the time it is a hold over emotion and response from a much older human ancestor.  I won't speculate as to which human ancestor as there seems to be some dispute in the Neanderthal connection.  Regardless, pre-historic ancestor no doubt.  In other words, most of the time fear should probably be dealt with as being fundamentally irrational, no matter how many fancy words you put to it.  A survival instinct.  So far nothing dramatic has happened with this new awareness of fear, except that I am perhaps more sympathetic to people who are afraid and respond in anger or self defense.  I am also taking some risks again.  For example I have not written in this personal blog since 2010 and I am picking it up again.  I have put the surfboard in the water and attempted to catch waves, not just ride on the foam that I catch after the wave breaks...the result being I have both caught and ridden 3 waves now.  I trust my partner more instead of live in the fear of old hurts morphing into new ones.  I also want my politics to be kindness.  Fear more often then not, does not encourage kindness.  So now I am learning to embrace my fear and look at it, understand it and then let it go.  I hope by doing this I'll have more time to "live the dash" in my life.  1971 - ?  That dash is what matters now, not the question mark.