fear

Wednesday morning, I was driving off-road in an '01 Toyota HiLux through Wadi Rum, the Jordanian desert where "Lawrence of Arabia" was filmed. Our guide had the slick look of a hustler. I didn't trust him, and had a lingering doubt that he might take our money and leave us in the desert to dry. Turns out I was wrong, and in the end he was a decent guy. I want to talk about that fear.


We were driving up, across and down massive steep dunes, and wheeling about empty stretches of desert where the only thing to see was sand, rock and scrub. My anxiety - about being ripped off, left for dead - blended into fear that the truck would tip over into the sand, and we would struggle to survive on the water left in the engine coolant. Of course, the fear was unrealistic, but there it was.

I realized that I should thank God for the fear. At a basic level, fear can keep us alive. It lets us know what to avoid, and when to run. Too much fear can slow us down, too. But by entering into the scary spaces, we have a chance to confront the ultimate fear. When you go into those unknown places, empty places, dangerous places, you can test out what it's like to face the final unknown place: death.

We live our lives in dread of the end. We are constantly slowed down by fears of loss, terror of our own mortality, and by the dark realization that it all ends, sometimes by chance. The rabbis called sleep one-sixtieth of death, and I might say that a thrill is one-sixtieth of that final fear. I think that everyday fears, about money, about family, about health and safety help us touch the awe of death from a safe distance.

Step into fear from time to time, even if it's just the terrible character of Anton Chigurh in "No Country for Old Men." Without testing those waters, you may never be able to live with the knowledge that you will die.