Beyond Fear. Dorothy Rowe

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СКАЧАТЬ see yourself as failing to meet the standards and rules of life beyond death’s doorway, you feel great fear.³

      Seeing death as the end of existence or seeing it as a doorway to another life are ways of trying to understand, not just our own life, but our life in relation to space and time. When we contemplate the vastness of the ocean or the immensity of the heavens, we feel great awe, a mixture of respect, fear and incomprehension. To reduce our fear and increase our understanding, we develop theories to explain, in the words of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, ‘Life, the universe and everything’.⁴

      Some of us frame our explanation in scientific terms, and are left with puzzling things like curved space, a flat universe, black holes, and the question of whether there is life in other parts of the universe. A scientific description of life, the universe and everything is just as strange as a metaphysical or magical description. It gives rise to many fantasies, as the popularity of science fiction shows. In the end, a scientific explanation of life gives neither comfort nor security. To hold such beliefs and not be afraid requires courage and the ability to tolerate much uncertainty.

      Not everyone can manage this, and so they turn to metaphysical or magical beliefs in order to find greater comfort and security. The scientific view of life and the universe sees us humans as just a small part of a vast complexity which will go on being itself with no more special regard for human life than it has for asteroids, atoms and the fifth dimension. Metaphysical and magical views of life place human beings at the centre of the universe where everything that happens relates to us and where we can influence vast forces and powers by our prayers, rituals and virtues.

      Holding beliefs which place us at the centre of the universe under the control of a beneficent power can create a sense of security, and increased pride and self-confidence. Knowing that God loves you, or that your ancestors are watching over you, or that you are party to the forces of goodness which rule the world, can make day-to-day living simple and secure. However, the trouble is that everything in life has both good and bad implications. You win a lot of money in a lottery, which is good, and then all your impecunious, greedy relatives want to share your good fortune, which is bad. As an adolescent you look forward to being an independent adult, which is good, but as an independent adult you will have no one to look after you, and that can be quite bad. In the same way, our beliefs about the nature of life and death, whatever they may be, have good and bad implications. To rest secure in God’s love, or in the approbation of our ancestors, or in the power of the forces of goodness, we have to live our lives following certain rules, and if we fail to follow those rules then we are in great danger. The power which we perceived as protecting us can be turned against us and can threaten us with death and damnation.

      In a group discussion about the experience of depression one woman described how when she was badly depressed she would wake during the night with the conviction that she should check whether her children were safe in their beds. She would get out of her bed to do this, but as she entered the hallway, all familiarity vanished and she found herself faced with a vast black hole. She was sure that if she took a step forward she would plunge into the hole, so she would stand there frozen with terror. The group discussed this in terms of how easy it is in the dark to lose contact with the most familiar of surroundings, and how the image of being depressed (frequently expressed as falling down into a bottomless pit) is experienced as something real and palpable. The woman listened to this and then said, ‘I think that your feelings summon up powers - good powers or evil powers - out there. If you feel terrible, inside you, then you somehow draw this terrible blackness towards you. If you feel good and happy, then you draw this goodness out there to you.’

      This woman’s belief in supernatural powers was a comfort to her when she was happy, because happiness, she believed, attracted the benevolent power, but her belief also harmed her because when she was depressed she felt that she attracted the malevolent power.

      We may try to deal with our fear of death by imagining that it will not occur for a long, long time. But if that is the case we have to travel through old age to meet death, and the prospect of old age can be full of terrors. No one likes the idea of becoming deaf, weak sighted, forgetful, frail and incontinent. No one wants to be treated like a foolish child by patronizing doctors and nurses and disrespectful relatives. Yet that is the fate which awaits many of us, and no matter what plans we may make to avert such a fate - by looking after our health, or making financial provision for a place in a superior nursing home, or threatening our relatives with guilt and retribution if they do not look after us properly - we can still be frightened.

      Sometimes our fear of old age is more than just a fear of the practical problems it creates. Sometimes there is a magical dimension to our ideas about youth and old age.

      Sylvia came to see me distraught after her husband of fourteen years had left her for another woman. All her conversation was about him. If her description of him was in any way accurate I would not have given him houseroom, but Sylvia desperately wanted him back.

      They had met and married when she was thirty-four and he was twenty. I asked her what had made her fall in love with him.

      ‘Chemical reaction. He made me feel so good. Young. Some women don’t get older, do they? Like in those films, you’ve seen them, haven’t you, where there’s this woman and she’s young and very beautiful but really she’s hundreds of years old, and then something happens and she gets old, real old, suddenly, and her body starts to break up, ugh, it’s horrible, and she just crumbles up and her body sort of falls in on itself.’

      If this is what she feared old age would be, then it was no wonder that she wanted to hang on to a man who had the power to preserve her, even though he did beat her when he got angry.

      When I was researching for my book Time on Our Side⁵ I asked a large number of people how they felt about time passing and growing old. All agreed that growing old was frightening, but what made growing old an experience to be feared was different for each person and related to how they saw themselves. Those who had built their identity on achievement feared the time when they could achieve nothing. Those who had built their identity on being needed by others feared being of no use. Those who had built their identity on their sexual attractiveness or sexual prowess feared the fading of their beauty or their loss of vigour.

      What people saw as the beginning of the descent into old age depended on how old each person was. People in their twenties saw thirty as the peak of their life, and after that was nothing but decrepitude and decay. People in their thirties saw forty as the turning point, people in their forties saw fifty as the turning point, and so on. I have now turned seventy. Old age, I know, starts at eighty.

      Old age does have some actual deficits. Being ill in whatever form is no fun, and we live in a society where old people are not valued, except by politicians when they need the pensioners’ vote, but most of our fears about growing old arise from our ideas about old age. Fearing being ill or losing our physical and mental capacities is bad enough, but if we add to those fears our own prejudices about old people, if we see old people as being ugly, stupid and of no importance, then old age becomes something we dread. However, we are free to change our ideas and thus reduce our fears.

      Those of us who enjoy a relatively serene old age have certainly changed our ideas. When we were young many things mattered enormously to us. Now we know how little really matters, but we concentrate on that little which is of immense importance to us, be it those we love, or music, or stories as told on radio, television or film, or simply our garden.

      The serenity I enjoy can be interrupted when a chronic lung disease, bronchiectasis, a legacy from childhood, flares up and brings me low. Then I feel frightened, but at the same time I am ruthless СКАЧАТЬ