The Fear We Carry

A motif that is widely displayed in The Things They Carried is fear. One of the most obvious fears when going into war, or even realizing that you've been drafted, is the fear of dying. I used one of my favorite quotes about death and the fear of death as my first picture. When I think about the fear of death, I think about how people never want to let go of the things that they love, the people that they love, or the things that they want to do. I think the scariest thing about death is that people don't understand how closely intertwined life and death are. Without the other, one cannot exist. Life is only beautiful because death makes your time with life finite. 

The second picture that I have is a personal fear of mine, which I believe is very common. It is the fear of the future. So much is expected out of my friends and I... sometimes I'm afraid of what will happen if I don't live up to the expectations. It stresses me out just to think about taking the ACT, SAT, AP tests, and balancing good grades this year. On top of all of that, even if I score well, there's no knowing for sure where I'll go in life. I'm afraid of losing the people that I'm close to now, and living on my own, and having a job, and having to pay bills. The future is so frightening because it's impossible for me to fathom what it holds.

The next image is a GIF of Rapunzel from Tangled. It looks like she is afraid of the dark, but I think that the scariest thing about the dark is the fact that you don't know what it holds. It's the fear of the unknown. In the dark, you're never sure what (or who) is lurking in the shadows. Admittedly, I become well acquainted with this fear every time I watch a horror movie. The fear can also be related to war though, because when soldiers first enter war, they don't know what kinds of horrors it holds-in the dark or otherwise. Whether it be sounds in the mountains, the enemy in the bushes, or the pure violence of war, something is always biding its time. Pablo Picasso once said, "Everything you can imagine is real." What if you're imagining something horrible pacing back and forth in the dark? That's the thing about the unknown. You can never be sure if it isn't.

Another obvious fear in the book is the fear of appearing as a coward. All of the soldiers wear a mask of bravery, terrified to let anyone else know how scared they are on the inside. This is the same fear that makes us do things when someone says "I triple dog dare you!" Courage the Cowardly Dog is supposed to be brave (or at least that can be assumed by looking at his name), but he turns out to be afraid of everything. It made me think that he might be our deepest sense of fears personified and made into a cartoon. We all appear brave on the surface but just below something makes us feel nervous. Our self-confidence is superficial. We have a perpetual need to bury that fear underneath a facade of bravery. 

The last picture of the polar bear is supposed to show fear of embarrassment. This fear is what holds us back from trying new things. It's what holds me back from singing in front of people. It's also what pushes people from saying "no" to things. The group of soldiers are afraid to be anything less than fearless, because to show their true emotions would mean certain embarrassment. Fear both holds us back and pushes us out of our comfort zone. Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese monk who advocated for peace during the war. Perhaps that is what makes his remark on fear so meaningful: "Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones." When FDR said that the only thing we should fear is fear itself, is that true? Or would it be healthier just to acknowledge our fears in hopes that we can move on, and live in the moment?

Fear reminds me of a couple lines from the song "Cue The Sun!" by Daphne Loves Derby. "If I find my way through the darkest of days will I laugh about the things that kept me awake? If my greatest fear paints itself so crystal clear, will I run away or will I hide?"