I recently read an interesting article in the journal Current Biology about an American woman who has absolutely no sense of fear. That is, in general, zero point zero tenths. Scientists hung sensors around her, frightened her, frightened her in every way that she had enough imagination — no negative emotions. We sent an amazing woman on a special tour to the famous Waverly Hills Sanitarium horror attraction in Kentucky. This is an abandoned consumptive sanatorium with a bad reputation, where a whole program has been developed for thrill-seekers with optical and acoustic effects, ghost artists and other nightmares. Anyone who has seen the series «Ghostbusters» should know this location, it is used in several episodes.
The brave lady, all hung with sensors, did not lose her composure for a moment and even frightened one of the «ghosts», deciding to feel him. The rest of the tour participants, ordinary people, squealed in horror and asked to go outside.
The reason for the fearlessness of our American woman was purely medical. There is an almond-shaped fold in the brain called the amygdala. It is he who is responsible for the formation of fear.
With a rare Urbach-Wite disease, a very rare complication occurs, as a result of which the amygdala atrophies. This is exactly what happened to the unfortunate (or, conversely, happy?) American woman.
Sometimes such an experiment is performed on animals. Remove the mouse amygdala, and it starts to jump on the cat.
And the ancient Incas, as I read somewhere, owned the rudiments of neurosurgery and knew how to make a hole in the head of the soldiers, from which they became fearless. Not otherwise reached the amygdala.
One conversation with Yegor Gaidar stuck in my memory. He said that in their family, men have an anomaly: they do not understand at all what it is — a feeling of fear. Such was grandfather Arkady Golikov, such was his father, Admiral Timur Gaidar, and Yegor Timurovich inherited this strangeness. I always, in appearance and manner of speaking, perceived our reformer as an intelligent mummer, and even once portrayed him as such in a story about the fairy Limousine. But this is because at the time of writing I was not yet familiar with Yegor Gaidar. In fact, he was in a certain sense an iron man — I was told by people who observed him in various peak situations. I ask him: “Are you really, absolutely not afraid of anything?”. “Only one thing. But very strong, he says. — Nuclear war. (Then it seemed ridiculous to me — the time of nuclear confrontations, in my opinion, is a thing of the past. Today, when we again begin to frighten busurman with atomic missiles, I would not laugh anymore …. Okay, I’m not talking about politics, but about the biogenerator fear).
I try to imagine what it would be like to live without fear at all. Would I like it or not?
The first impulse, of course, is to answer: yes, I would very much like to!
Fear is a terrible feeling.
Tolstoy remarkably describes how Nikolai Rostov celebrates the coward, running away from the French: “One inseparable feeling of fear for his young, happy life dominated his whole being. Quickly jumping over the fences, with the swiftness with which he ran, playing burners, he flew across the field, occasionally turning his pale, kind, young face, and a chill of horror ran down his back.
Probably, Lieutenant Tolstoy knew this state firsthand — it is impressively described in the Sevastopol Tales.
And how many unworthy deeds and meanness are committed out of fear, how many destinies are broken.
No, it’s decided. Remove my amygdala, please. I don’t want to be afraid of anything. Nothing at all. As Vysotsky sang: «I don’t like myself when I’m afraid.»
On the other hand… Everyone must have had to do something through fear in life.
I have one of my earliest memories of how for some reason we started jumping from the roof of the garage in the yard. I was probably six or seven years old. As usual, there was someone reckless, and the rest climbed after him, including me. From top to bottom I looked — horror, numbness. Especially when my friend, who was braver than me, jumped, twisted his leg and yelled in pain. And I’m next. The girls are watching from below (they are smarter than us fools — they didn’t climb). Jumped, of course. Where to go? And for the first time in my life I experienced a feeling of victory — the most precious of victories, victory over myself. Maybe it wasn’t so stupid to jump off the top of the garage.
Why fear is needed from a biological point of view, it is understandable — the self-preservation instinct works. But fear is also necessary for the development of personality. Fear is needed so that you have something to win. Courage is not fearlessness, but the ability to defeat the amygdala. Cowardice is the opposite. When the amygdala beats you.
Fear, such a reptile, is very tortuous and tenacious. If you manage one, a new one is sure to hatch. At the same time, every age has its own fears.
As old age approaches, there is some reorientation of the amygdala. She stops reacting so sharply to thoughts of death. Firstly, due to physiology, vital energy is gradually demobilized. Secondly, for psychological reasons. Parents, older friends, and then peers gradually move to another world. There are more and more of their own there, they populate and inhabit the otherworldly space, making it less creepy. They call an old man from there, they are waiting for him, but here everything gradually becomes alien to him, incomprehensible, uninteresting.
In old age, a woman usually weakens the painful fear of being unattractive, unwanted. Why, if everything has already happened, everything has already taken place?
In men, competitiveness weakens, ambition disappears. (This is actually one of the indispensable attributes of wisdom).
Well, a person of my profession, if he takes it seriously, in Japanese, as the Way, has his own specific fear. Many times I have heard writers in writer’s block fearfully say that the magical state of flight will never return. Some, it happens, with a fright and go into a binge.
Let’s say I have a slightly different writing specialty — I’m a fiction writer. I don’t need flights, I build architectural structures, from the bottom up — as high as I can. But this is also scary.
Once, answering a question from the «mailbox», I already talked about the peur de manquer point. I repeat for those who have not seen.
For a long time I had a pain in a certain place on the spine, it did not go away. Terribly interfered with life. I even started walking with a cane like a cheap dude. In the end, I went to a French doctor with a Chinese diploma. She felt me, leafed through some tome and said: “This is the point that hurts you, which is called Fear of Failure. Do you want me to take it away for you? She’s very sensitive to you.»
I thought and thought and refused. You can’t write a living book if you don’t vibrate with the fear that you won’t succeed. Even if it’s just a detective. The doctor said: “Then I can move the point to another place, under the shoulder blade. Walking will not interfere. I conjured something there, crushed it, poked it with my finger, and the back went away. But the Fear of Failure remains.
And what would I be without this fear?
No, I want to be afraid and rejoice in the victory over fear.
Don’t touch my amygdala.