Faulkner on Fear

I've been writing a lot about fear lately - the fear of being in groups, the fear of being alone. I thought this week, I'd share the most inspirational piece of writing I know about fear. It has to do specifically with writing but I think it applies to all varieties of creativity....and living. Here is Faulkner's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech:

I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work -- a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed -- love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.

The poet’s, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

On Losing the Fear

Now that my ankle is almost whole, I’m back at work again. I work in the infirmary of a maximum-security prison for the mentally ill. I missed working with the inmates – running coping skills groups and “doing” counseling. It’s actually great to be back.

What makes it really great is that we have a new team leader – a young psychiatrist who excited about being there, too. He believes in respecting the inmates as human beings and giving them skills, support and hope that they can improve their lives. Just what I believe. I’m looking forward to working with him.

Yesterday, I was at a mental health conference and happened to sit with this doctor at lunch. We got to talking about the difference between working with the mentally ill violent offenders in a prison versus a state hospital (were he had worked before.) How did he do it without the help of corrections officers, I asked.

He smiled and replied that he had a team of “bouncers, bikers and marshal arts experts” who kept things in line. If a patient got out of hand, these men were at the ready and strode into danger as a fireman runs into a burning building. These men were fearless.

“Studies show that criminals seek out victims who show fear. Predators can sense vulnerability,” he said. I can attest to that in my own history – from being a child who was molested to being an adolescent who was raped to being an adult who was sexually abused. It’s the “sitting duck syndrome.” The more afraid or vulnerable you are, the more likely you are to be a victim. Makes sense.

But how do you get over fear when you’re afraid? How do you find the courage when you have no confidence? How do you stop being a victim? How to be a butterfly instead of a caterpillar? (I sound like Lion from “The Wizard of Oz.”)

Well, if we follow the example of those “mental health technicians” in the state psychiatric hospital, then we see that preparation and fitness is a big part of strength. We also see that carrying yourself with supreme confidence – that going INTO the direction of your fear and not running from it – is key. It also doesn’t hurt to have a faith in something greater than yourself to carry you through.

With this in mind, I am facing the world with my story, determined to bring hope to victims and closure for the victim part of myself. In the dead of night, my dreams tell me I am still afraid but in the light of day, with eyes open, I can face my fears and share my truth. That’s what I’m working on these days, since being back to work.