Fear

The other night back in the unit we were having a very rare evening with no program at all. We were even allowed to left the surroundings of the quarter for a few hours so me and a dear friend of mine decided to go out fo a change to explore this new city we'd been sent to. When we were trying to find our way back we suddenly found ourselves standing on the other side of a park with no lights on. The park was like a huge field of grass with one single road going through it. This time of a year it gets black right after five o'clock here in Finland and it was really getting late. There were no windows, no streetlamps, nothing. We were both kind of surprised by this sudden lack of light. I remember us commenting "Damn it's dark, I can't even see the road!" and "Are we really gonna go this way?"

Now, we're soldiers. We're used to operate in the forests with no light at all. I remember us discussing this and me saying "Yeah, but normally I carry my gun with me." and him answering something about having his partner next to him for cover. That's when I said "Good thing there's two of us, then."

That night I started thinking about fear. Fear is natural to us, it's designed to keep us alive. But fear causes stress and stress isn't really a good combination with any illnesses. What we usually fear is the famous unknown: We don't know what it might do or say, what might happen or not to happen. We fear what we don't know, what we can't be sure of, or of which risks we can not evaluate beforehand.

Getting sick is something we fear cause we don't know just how big an impact it may have on our lives. It's probably even scarier when facing a condition of which 98% of the whole population of the world hasn't even heard of. There's suddenly something new and unpredicatble controlling every day of your life which you can't seem to tackle sence you can't even spell its name right.

So what do you do? You build up a shield. When I put my personal shield on, take my 7.62 RK 62 in my hand, I'm not really afraid. I don't know what it is about but even without any bullets in it I feel pretty safe. In every day life the shield of course is more of a psychological, mental thing: You might get tough, isolate yourself from the world or just seem overly brave outside. But inside you just feel lost and helpless.

That's when you gotta start finding out what's there agains you, who's your true enemy, the cause of fear. But what would happen if I had have a lamp with me in that park? It would have lighten up the spot right around me leaving more questions than answers: What's behind that tree over there? Is that a rock or a person? Did something just move in those bushes? Did you hear something or was it just me? All the moving shadows the small light created, all the imaginations in my head woken up by the darkness..

This tactic of lighting up a candle in a middle of the vast universe just for a sneaky peak isn't gonna serve you right when talking about illnesses. It's the starting phase we all gotta go through at first in an order to get to know "each other", but leaving it there will just leave the curtain down. You won't see, you won't understand.

Step by step you gotta shed some light on the subject. Shadow by shadow the dark will fade away once you get more familiar with your own body and soul. Minute by minute you'll get closer to the sunrise and before you know it, the morning has come. Soon you'll realize the night of fear was nothing more than a moment that has now passed.

A better solution for that shield truly is another person, a fighting partner. Once you've got someone to share the battles with the morning will be here faster. With a friend there'll be half the pain and double the pleasure along the way. It's much easier to tackle the obstacles when you've got someone covering for you in the dark. And when there's light, you can see the world together the way it's really meant to be.

Like said, fear causes stress and stress is pure toxic for our health. It shakes the delicate biochemical balance of our body and changes it by creating toxic ingredients making us more sick and more afraid. Break the circle and shed some light on it. Just for yourself.

I will never be afraid again,
hold your breath and count to ten.
Stay for silence,
stay for when I'll never be afraid again.
- Christian Walz: Never Be Afraid Again