The perception of fear

Along came a centipede

One day I got up to write early in the morning, and for an hour or so this was my only occupation as the last shades of night were fading and the dawn illumined the sky. I was working on a novel, researching the works of Albert Camus and Alan Watts. The text flowed meekly onto the blank page and I was content with my work. Writing in the wee hours of the morning was a great way to start the day.

At one time I desired a second cup of tea, so I went to the kitchen to make some. Then along the wall came a house centipede (Scutigera coleoptrata), shuffling with its long whip-like legs on the white wall, wiggling its even longer antenna forward. To my embarrassment, I jumped in fear, good thing I did not scream for I might have woken up my wife and son. I stood there staring at it with fear and disgust.

Then the analysis begin. What to do with the centipede on the wall? First nomination: kill it! I did not want to kill it. I am a biologist for God’s sake and knew full well that this creature although repulsive to my eye was absolutely harmless and non-violent as opposed to the large centipedes of genus Scolopendra. If I killed a creature only because of its appearance, then I was no better than the half-wits who chop up non-venomous snakes found in their gardens with spades.

While I was being lofty and self-righteous about my pacifism the centipede moved rather quickly up the wall and this startled me again. I know this is nothing more the simple fear. I had always disliked centipedes. Some of my former work included the handling of insects, lizards, frogs, snakes, dissections, and work with tissues, urine, feces and what not. I did not get queasy from such things. But just the site of this 30-legged creature sends tremors over my shoulders and spine.

Then I thought of an exercise suggested by Jordan Peterson when dealing with phobias, which was to willingly keep on watching the object of fear from a comfortable distance until one became board of it. Therefore, I did that for a while and maybe became a bit calmer because of it. Several minutes were dedicated to pure observation of this creature. It was missing one or two legs in its rear end. I could see this quite clearly as the house centipede’s longest legs are at its backend. Still, this did not impede its movement and it raced quickly along the wall, only pausing now and then to lash its long antenna and make sense of its surroundings.

However, when it came closer to me, I stepped back. For some time I wondered whether to pick it up. I knew that its small forcipes had difficulty penetrating human skin, yet just one move, one wiggle from this creature was enough for me to abandon this idea. The centipede was less scary when still, but when it shuffled along the wall this continued to startle me.

Then a third thought came upon me. I could not live with the sight of this little creature. It was find having it in the dark, behind the furniture, where there were maybe more of them, but when in the open its presence constituted a problem. I had a two-year-old son, what if while playing he corners the centipede and it bit him? He could get an allergic reaction.

Live or dead the centipede had to go. Therefore, I applied the standard protocol when dealing with creepy-crawlies. I took a vessel, a plastic jug in my case, wide enough to surround the whole animal and a thick piece of paper, which I slipped underneath after covering the centipede. When covered by the jug it immediately started crawling on the sides of the container and this startled me further. As if, it was touching my hand through the solid, yet transparent walls of the jug. Then I threw it out the window.

Could not live with its sight

The crime of the centipede was in its appearance. I could rationalize that it was harmless and timid. That it would have probably never hurt no one and maybe it was even useful, eating spiders, bed bugs, termites, cockroaches or ants. I did not mind having dozens of these creatures in my home, as long as I never saw them!

Is not this the human condition in general? How much are the things that reside in our house, yet we cannot bare to see them. Not only our fears, but also our shames, regrets, self-pity and detestable memories and experiences. When we look at them all we think about is to get rid of them or to look away. However, we cannot, bear to look too long, so we take a jug and a piece of paper and throw them out the window and we willfully forget that in seconds they will crawl back in the house and reside behind the furniture, just like that little centipede did.

Maybe we should make the effort to force ourselves to look upon such things, not as a means of self-torture or stoic stubbornness, but with a genuine desire to accept. This is akin to the psychological concept of integrating the shadow. Fear seems to impede this process, but this is not entirely true. Fear has its purpose of preservation and when it sends me into a cascade of reactions it does so with a means to protect me. Like the brake pedal in a car, which will always trump the gas pedal so if both pedals are pressed with equal strength the car will not move and the tires will burnout rolling in one place.

That is why after looking at the centipede for some time I threw it away. The best I can do is set an intention for myself too look at it longer the next time it crawls out in the open. To even more gently throw it out next time and leave it closer to the window sill, so it will soon come back home when I am not looking.

A day or so later I came across a passage from the book “Freedom from the known” by the 20^th century Indian philosopher and writer Jiddu Krishnamurti, which seemed very relevant to yesterday’s encounter with the centipede: “You can observe a cloud, or a tree or the movement of a river with a fairly quiet mind, because they are not very important to you, but to watch yourself is far more difficult. So, when you are directly in contact with fear or despair, loneliness or jealousy or any other ugly state of mind can you look at it so completely that your mind is quiet enough to see it. Can the mind perceive fear and not the different forms of fear? “

The outer appearance and movement of the centipede were the forms of fear and though there might be some survival value in such fear (many wild centipedes can be quite venomous), it was not that different from my fear of making a mistake at work or of embarrassing myself in public. So, in my last encounter with the centipede, I observed the form of fear, I was watching it, where a more interesting exercise would be to watch myself. Fear might be crawling on the wall, in the gaze of a stranger or in anticipation of the future, but fear itself does not reside outside ourselves. To watch the watcher, his tremors and reaction seems more interesting, whereby you could not even if you wanted to place the watcher in a container and gently throw him out the window, which alone is an important realization.