Opinion/Editorial
THE TIMBER OF FEAR
The fjords of Norway might be a place to best illustrate what the fear of not surviving does to the human spirit, condition, and ability. Over a thousand years ago some humans sailed rickety craft up many of the fjords there to find small chunks of land capable of holding small agricultural gardens and managing a few pacified animals. The humans of the time sailed up those fjords because they were running for their lives from other humans and animal predators. Human flesh makes just as effective an energy-consumptive substance as other animal flesh. These early Norwegians found some arable plots, only reachable by boat. The huge overhanging cliffs, staring coldly down into the fjord waters protected them from assaults from above while making it extremely difficult to find, access, or reach them from the water or across deep snows driven over winter’s frozen ice.
What became of these peaceful farmers and early students of animal husbandry? They ran out of food. They ran out of animals. So, under the duress of impossibly long and harsh winters, they invented, created, and forged a new class of boats. Boats that could be built extremely large and strong with the use of iron nails the villages could smelt from the high iron content stones of their surrounding cliff walls. The Vikings were born. These peaceful settlers running from the viciousness of other more violent cultures took their craft out, and crossed oceans near and far, to deliver a measure of fast-moving brutal violence unknown to their time or regions of exploration. They brought home their plundered riches and incorporated more physical and genetic strength into their population while, at the same time, using captured slaves to build even more and stronger boats to continue their relentless and unmerciful attacks.
Humanity means well. It does so in general and specifically. The example of Viking development illustrated here is nothing more or less than a verification of Darwin’s writing about the survival of the fittest and E.O. Wilson’s educational conclusions about the effect and results of sociobiology. We, humans, live by internalizing fear and then making it a communicable disease that we spread around ourselves and then around the world to all other living species. That humans take internal terror and use it on other living things better than other species only serves to confirm that the ever-growing human population is more successfully using this tool than any other animal species. The timber of the wood that held Viking hordes is symbolic of this fear. It is pervasive, and permissive and makes the exportation of fear possible while taking failure and turning it completely around. But what then is success for human beings? Is it some sort of pastoral life, surrounded by peaceful countryside, pacified neighbors, and beneficent supplies of food, comfort, and entertainment? It would appear, from reading human literature, watching television, and considering sports activities and results, that humans want anything but a life of almost nursing home inactivity and rest.
If an alien species were to develop the technology and motivation to actually cross uncrossable distances of space to reach Earth, what would they find and think? Would they not have developed their own technology and motivation from the very foundations of fear so inlaid into the core psychology of every human on the planet?
Reading this article, you are afraid. You are afraid of many things. You are afraid of running out of money, no matter how much you have. You are afraid of being caught up in a system of justice even though you have done nothing you consider might merit such treatment. You are afraid of being alone, even among friends and family at a grand Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. You are afraid of losing your job if you have one or not being able to find another if you don’t. You are afraid of becoming the “nothing” in the American culture you become if you retire and admit it. You are possibly overdrawn at the bank, maybe shut down from your credit cards, pregnant without a significant other, or being thrown out of a job or school. These states are termed ‘the human social condition’ by anthropologists. If none of that is going on in your life you are in the slim minority.
From the depths of such fears (although different in detail) the Vikings were born. From the timber of fear grows angst and decisions to proceed against all odds and in the face of such fear it makes calm sleep only something someone else tells you that he or she has. To survive you must occasionally, or not, surround your fear in a cocoon of understanding and value the energy you contain in this fusion chamber of power. It is fear that has gotten human beings this far and it is fear that is going to take us to other planets, stars, and galaxies.
When we, as humans, lose our fear, then we will likely serve only as the food source for some other fearful beings.
