FEAR
STANDARD RESPONSES TO FEAR
Of
AVERAGE PERSONS
We are all afraid some times in life. It may be for right reasons or for wrong ones. It happens to all.
We are all average persons – until we learn above average responses– in the subsequent posts… and actively implement them.
How does an AVERAGE PERSON respond when he or she is afraid?
We are not discussing how to develop courage or fearlessness - in this blog post. We are talking of actual, existing fear contexts and how average persons respond to them. We will talk of developing courage and fearlessness and extra-ordinary responses to fear contexts in a next post.
The standard responses of Average persons to a fear context generally includes the following : (a) Fight (b) Flight (c) Freeze (d) Flock (e) Extreme Reactions. These are all examined below :
F I G H T
There can be 3 circumstances in which FEAR makes us fight it out – as we can see below.
NO WAY OUT : Some times a fear context does not allow us any option except FIGHTING IT OUT. Let us see a few examples.
Example (i) You and your young daughter is walking on a street. A big bully comes and starts bullying both of you. You are both afraid. You begin to understand that if you keep quiet and do not resist and protest, both of you will be robbed. Your daughter may be molested and raped. Both of you will have to face social shame all your life.
You are two but weaker than the bully. The Bully is one but stronger. He is not allowing you to go any way. In a situation of this type, quite often, all escape routes are closed. All other methods are sealed. You HAVE TO FIGHT. That is the only way left for you. So you will. Your daughter also will. Your minds will be tuned to fight – by the very methods that the bully uses against you. Many have fought bullies, robbers, other arrogant and lawless persons etc in such circumstances. The result of the fight depends on several factors.
But, people have fought out their way when driven to the wall. Some one asked - which dog will win in the dog-fight. The big dog or the small dog. The reply was, the half hearted dog will lose and the whole hearted dog will win. Do not just look at the dogs in the fight, but look at the FIGHT in the dogs. Many such factors matter. Babur, Alexander and many such warriors, followed by small but strong armies, overpowered huge armies led by weak generals.
The moral is – when driven to the wall – FIGHT. This is one time, when anger, intelligence and daring work wonders for you. Become angry. Become intelligent. Become daring. Then, Fight!! Anger, Intelligence and daring give you more strength and stamina than you can ever imagine that you possess!!
SKILLS & CONFIDENCE : Some times, we may ready ourselves to FIGHT, if we feel, we are reasonably well equipped with the necessary skills to fight out the fear context. This is also a very good way of dealing with a fear context. If you are a martial arts practitioner, having fought and won over several opponents in prize fights – your present opponent, the bully on the street, the robbers who entered you house or some one like that – evokes very little fear in you. You know how to tackle him. It is one more occasion to display your skills and test them.
You may even start playing with the opponent, just like a lion or tiger plays with small prey before killing and eating it. Typically, in such cases, the opponent is less prepared and less skilled. Even if he is equally skilled – you still face him with your skills and superior self confidence.
Here, the morale booster is your well tested skills in fighting out a fear context. Some skilled individuals are not only not afraid of the most venomous snakes but they actually go after them, catch them, play with them and then leave them free. It is not that the danger of the venom is less for them. They are highly skilled and experienced and cautious enough – which the others are not.
The moral here is – for most of the your high frequency fear contexts – you must develop the necessary skills to face them. The society must encourage development of such skills.
NATURAL TENDENCY : Some people, either at all times, or at certain times, have a Natural tendency, to fight out a fear context and not run away from it or adopt any other method of dealing with it.
Examples (i) : A rowdy accosts a mother and tries to take away her child forcibly from her. The mother fights out, even if she knows well that it is an unequal fight. Losing the child is simply unacceptable, even if in the process of fighting for the child, the mother can get badly injured or die. Every rowdy knows that it is not easy to take away a child from the mother. Here, it is the natural tendency of any good mother to fight for her child. But, the same may not be true with any body else other than the mother. A servant or a relative will not show that much resistance to the Rowdy. They have no such natural tendency.
Example (ii): In many world cultures, including the Indian culture, it used to be ingrained into the males of the society that safeguarding one’s wife, mother and daughter is more important than one’s own life itself. If others try to harm the womenfolk of a household, the males fight out till the end. The story of Ramayana is precisely that. In Mahabharat times, the same principle got diluted. Yudhistir is till to day not excused for his fault of betting and losing Draupadhi to the Kauravas. Even in recent times, we find, many Indian families attaching great importance to guarding their females from others as though their own honour depended on it and any thing adverse happening to the females is taken as worse than death. Such Healthy customs must be ingrained in people and must be taught in all forums like schools, colleges, public debates etc. This gives people extraordinary courage to fight such fear contexts. It becomes a natural tendency and scares away anti social elements from their nefarious acts.
Example (iii) : Fighting for the freedom and safety of the nation from external predators / conquerors is a similar context. Any Nation which does not explicitly teach its people including its children, youth, middle aged men and the elderly that the honour of the Nation must be upheld at all costs – specially from external predators pays very dearly in case of external aggression and in cases of internal insurgencies.
All these examples show how people develop a NATURAL TENDENCY to fight out specific FEAR CONTEXTs.
In Summary – we can say that developing adequate skills and self confidence against normal, foreseeable fear contexts is a preferable activity for any society to reduce the impact of fear in its people. Also, developing a natural tendency to fight for the nation, for the honor of females and elders and so on is a must for a nation. Patriotism and morality – must be taught strongly in schools and other educational institutions – else, a society or country will pay dearly for its lapse in terms of increasing crime rate and increasing restlessness and insecurity in the society. Some times, when left with no other choice – fighting out the fear context may be the only choice and many people do get sufficiently angry, intelligent and bold to fight out much against their normal behaviour.
FLIGHT
Flight from the scene of the Fear context is another useful choice. When do we run away or consider it the best option – in a fear context?
PRUDENCE : Some times prudence is better than valour. You can fight with one bully. Or two. But, can you fight with a hundred? No way. So, flight is the only choice at such times.
A Police lathi charge is going on in one street. It is clearly likely to spread. You are just a bystander who came there for buying some medicines for your sick mother. Will you like to stand and see what happens next?? No. Run from the scene.
You are walking on a hilly terrain. At a distance, you locate a cheetah or some wild animal. You have your house nearby or some open house nearby. What do you do? Run for cover. Run for safety. Save your skin.
You have an urgent interview or a critical business engagement. A street bully wants to threaten you. You are skilled and bold to face him. But, it takes precious time. You know you can also escape from easily. So…, Escape!! Life needs such prudence. Don’t give in to your EGO at such times. It wants you to fight. Your valour is not always intelligent. Flight is not always cowardice.
NATURE’S FURY : You can’t face a tsunami, a typhoon, a sand storm, an earth quake, a volcanic eruption or similar incidents of Nature’s fury. There is no bravery involved in staying put to face them. Stay out of their way. There are many occasions in this world when you may have to run for safety. Keep your body and mind fit enough to run reasonably to safety. This is a necessity. Some times, the flight may not be physical, but psychological or metaphorical.
In a meeting, your boss is unduly aggressive. You have a point within you which is diametrically opposite to that of your Boss. You are under a great temptation to make your point. But, if your boss hears it, he will not only not take it, but is sure to fire you or even end your career!! So what do you do? Keep away from your Boss’s line of fire.
During Maha Bharat War, the great Arjuna had requested Lord Krishna to take him away from the line of fire of Bheeshma on one occasion and of karna on another. Arjuna was not a coward and not an unskilled warrior. He was not also afraid of laying down his life, if needed. But, some times, it is better to be away from the scene of fighting and wait for a better occasion. You will have a better chance of winning subsequently. Flight is not a bad technique on such occasions.
Evidently, it is a bad and ignominious technique to use when your whole honour, your families’ honour or your country’s honour is at stake from a predator; when it is “now or never” , and when “flight” destroys all that you lived for in life. Adopt Prudence (of flight) when justified and valour when more appropriate!! When FIGHT is the need, FLIGHT is bad. When FLIGHT is the need, FIGHT is bad.
FREEZE
Many people become totally immobile in fear and are unable to decide on what to do in the fear context, which itself is one sort of response to such a context. It is of course a bad response most of the time.
We are talking here of what average persons do when faced with a fear context. FREEZE is one response. A huge, venemous cobra is standing in your way and hissing whichever way you move. Many people may become frozen in fear. But, many animals, venomous snakes, insects etc – tend to attack only moving objects, moving persons, scared and scaring persons but not static persons.
We can see in the National Geographic and animal planet channels, how some people stand immobile while honey bees, cobras or such harmful beings are placed all around them for considerable time. Their task is to remain stable, immobile and un-afraid for the specified time. Then they come out of that. We do find remaining FROZEN does ward off dangers in such fear contexts. Freeze, as a tactical technique may work wonders at such times. But, otherwise, FREEZE is more harmful than any other technique.
F L O C K
Flock means – coming together of similarly threatened people and then deciding on an appropriate type of response to the fear context or threat scenario. It is possible to use when the fear context is of a prolonged nature and is likely to threaten a whole society over a period of time. It is also a good technique to use – when only one person is under threat at this moment – but more people may come under threat in future, if the threat scenario is not tackled well, in a combined manner.
There is a beautiful PANCHA THANTRA story of how four bullocks which were together as friends and eating grass freely on the fringes of a jungle. A lion came from the jungle and attacked one of the bullocks. But, to its surprise, all the four bullocks started attacking the Lion. The lion was badly injured and ran away into the jungle. After some time, the four bullocks quarreled among themselves bitterly. Each started grazing in a different direction. The lion saw this and attacked a bullock. The attacked bullock tried to defend but was helpless to face the lion singly. The other bullocks remained unmoved at the death of their former friend. In course of time, the lion attacked another bullock, yet another bullock and finally the last bullock, and killed and ate them all. Come together, come together, come together – emphasizes the PANCHA TANTRA in many of its beautiful stories.
Unfortunately, in today’s world, the bad men are coming together for bad purposes very easily – while good men are not coming together even to ensure their own safety. It is important that GOOD MEN must realize their foolishness of not coming together with others – sink their useless EGOS, and form strong associations – not only to defend themselves, but also, to defend the nation, to help each other economically, socially and so on. FLOCKING is by far the best technique of all. What one cannot do - many together can do. UNITY is STRENGTH. United we succeed, Divided we fail. Good men specifically are exhorted to come together!! The world needs their combined services. They themselves need their combined services.
EXTREME REACTIONS
Many people resort to extreme steps as reaction to a fear contexts – either knowingly or involuntarily. A person is in huge debt and does not know how to repay. He commits suicide in fear of being shamed in the society. A person is ashamed that Police arrested him and treated him badly or he was given a sentence of Jail by judiciary. He commits suicide in shame. A brilliant student expecting top grades doesn’t get such grades. He commits suicide in sorrow and fear of shame. Some times, a non-poisonous snake may bite a person. But, he thinks it is poisonous. He is shocked and dies in shock.
When a person loses all hope – Fear of shame, fear of death, fear of big injuries, fear of losing family and such catastrophes make him resort to such extreme reactions either voluntarily or involuntarily. Some times, the reaction of death, paralysis, seizures etc is instant.
SUMMARY
The five types of reactions discussed above are normal ways in which normal individuals respond to fear contexts. <F+ F + F + F + E> are all the normal ways of average persons.
Are Average persons therefore of five different types? No. The same person may adopt different methods at different times, in different fear contexts. The same person can also be trained to adopt better methods.
We have also discussed how an individual, and a nation must mould themselves for better handling fear contexts.
You, the reader, must go through the methods, judge where you are in the scheme of various fear contexts and take steps to adopt better techniques in future.
We will also examine in future blog Posts, some specific fear contexts and suggest what you can and need to do – to protect your self and handle them well. After that –we will also examine how to ELIMINATE FEAR from our life altogether.
* * * E N D * * *
No comments:
Post a Comment