09.11.07
Fearlessness Is Our Birthright
It has now been six years to the day since the horrific events of September 11, 2001. Understandably, many of us still remain fearful of another attack.
Six years ago, many bravely declared, “If you’re afraid, then the terrorists have won.” Sadly, after years of frightening news reports and ominous statements by public officials, this idea seems to have gone out of fashion. At times it seems that entire industries have sprung up to feed on our collective terror, like some demon from a science fiction film.
The negative effects of fear on our bodies and on our quality of life are as self-evident as they are well-documented. According to a 2005 article by Marc Siegel in the Washington Post, high levels of anxiety and fearfulness increase one’s chances for cancer, stroke, and heart disease. Even more interestingly, he writes that “[a] study in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine showed that Israeli women who expressed fear of terrorism had twice the level of an enzyme that correlates with heart disease as did similar women who weren’t worried.“ (Emphasis mine.)
As Americans, we are just beginning to realize how much we have to learn from cultures that we once misunderstood as primitive and superstitious. Most often overlooked and forgotten is the traditional importance placed on reverence for one’s ancestry.
How do those fearless Israeli women, living their entire lives in a country ravaged by terrorism and war, manage not to worry? It may be because they do not feel alone or insignificant. Certainly they feel part of something greater and more important than themselves — not just a member of a nation, but part of a long bloodline stretching back to pre-Biblical times. Their parents and grandparents suffered through the Holocaust; a bomb in the marketplace must seem trifling in comparison.
Most Americans have lost touch with their own ancestry, whether through Ellis Island, the slave trade, or simple ignorance and disinterest. In a way, this is a great loss; on the other hand, it means that we are free to embrace the ancestors of the whole world as our forebears and our teachers.
So that we may live today, thousands of generations suffered and sacrificed to feed their children and fill their own bellies. Our predecessors survived not only through famine, genocide, ignorance, and atrocity, but also through climate change more severe than any living human being has ever witnessed. Relatively speaking, our modern situation is not special, unique, or even particularly dire. Ten thousand years ago, there were probably only 5,000 human beings alive on planet Earth — about enough to fill a large suburban high school. A bad winter could have taken us all out.
No doubt this made some of our ancestors very fearful. Others were brave, just like many Americans are today. But a few others must have stepped out very far, beyond bravery, into the peacefulness that comes when you have no fear. Our most fearless ancestors must have been the leaders, the comforters, and the healers of their people. According to medical fact, our fearless ancestors probably lived, thrived, and reproduced at a much higher rate than the fearful ones.
It was our fearless ancestors that made everything all right again for everyone countless times over, and it is us, their fearless descendants, that will save us this time as well.