Fear of the Unknown

This is what I think about the beginning.

It all goes back to the fear of the unknown. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of your life being meaningless, fear of the end of the world, it all goes back to this. And it's amazing how much fear plays a part in everything we do. What things do you do to keep from having to think about it?

Fire keeps the dark away. I imagine that for prehistoric man, going to sleep in the darkness with predators all around them must have been terrifying. But fire provides a ring of light, an area that is no longer unknown, it’s visible.

Then we built houses. Now we actually have buildings to keep the unknown out. Not only do we not have to see the darkness, but we have created a physical barrier.

Then we built roads, and developed better means of transportation. We had already created safe havens from the unknown, but we still had to cross the unknown to get from one to another. So, we had to speed up the process of getting through it.

And so on.

Science is basically the process of making the unknown known. The giant furry beast that raises on its hind legs and roars, barring its claws and fangs, is fairly frightening. But the brown bear, which is a vegetarian, can be easily scared off if one makes loud noises, and will only attack if its child is in danger, is a much safer idea. The process of science is basically the quest to make the unknown knowable.

The problem with this whole thing is that we are trying to deal with the fear of the unknown by making everything known. If we understand everything, if there’s no corner left unexplored, then there’s nothing left for us to be scared of. But fear, and especially the fear of the unknown, is a primal experience we will never get rid of. 5 year-olds will always be scared of the darkness when they try to sleep. Adults will always be scared of what will happen when we die. Cause that’s really the great unknown that we’re scared of, isn’t it?

Instead of dealing with the unknown, maybe we should try to deal with the fear. Embrace the fact that we feel fear, and not let it make us run away. Face it, feel it.
There’s a game we used to play called fear of the dark. You walk out into the forest in the darkness and keep walking until you’re too scared to go any further. When you reach that point, you simply stop. You wait until the fear passes over you. When you can, you take the next step. And the next. Eventually the signal is called and everyone returns. What did you learn?