Fear.

Well, finally something we all hate to talk about, so maybe I will broach this subject and make it a little more accessible. If nothing else, I will give you some information that will make it a little more bearable.

One of the most asked questions about fear is: what do we fear most? From a psychological perspective, there isn’t one thing that we all fear, but out of many fears, psychologists have found a few that recur most often, and those are: death, loss, rejection, uncertainty, and loss of control.

I myself would say fear of death and fear of loss. Have you ever asked yourself these questions: Why do I fear death? And why do I fear loss? Well, let’s dig a little deeper into these, shall we?

What is death? Well, death is the ultimate biological threat. Terror Management Theory, for example, proposes that awareness of our own mortality creates a unique psychological problem: we know that one day we will die. Much of human culture, belief, achievement, family, and the desire to leave something behind can partly function as a way of dealing with mortality. But interestingly enough, people are not always most frightened by death itself. More often than not, they fear what surrounds it more: pain, helplessness, losing control, leaving loved ones behind, or the unknown.

I am thinking out loud now: “Why do we fear something we know nothing about? No one has come back from death, or have they?” ( Is there life after life)

And how about loss? As humans, we form attachments. Once someone becomes part of our psychological world, losing that person can feel like losing a part of ourselves. Read my other blog, To Live with a Hole in the Chest. This is why heartbreak, abandonment, grief, and rejection can be extraordinarily powerful and painful.

The way our brain works isn’t: “Well, that relationship ended.” Oh no, we make it a lot more complex and hurtful to ourselves and all those involved, and even the ones who are not involved. Stop for a second and think about what I just said. Read it again, then ask yourself why? Why do we hurt ourselves and then the other person or persons, and all the people involved or not?

So, when we think a little deeper, I think we fear loss more than death. What do you think about that?

Actually, this connects beautifully with my blog about Love. The more something matters to us, the more vulnerable we become to losing it. In that sense, love and fear are strangely connected. We cannot truly care about something without acquiring the possibility of losing it.

So, loss takes first place.

Living in the Accursed Mountains of Montenegro, I was exposed to fear quite early and young. What is young is a legitimate question. Well, for me, I had two rather fearful experiences, or traumas one can say. Well, this will eventually be in my book, so here I will introduce them briefly.

I don’t remember which one happened first, but they both happened at about the same time. As many of you know, I grew up in a small village called Dragi in the Prokletije mountain region. We all had animals that we were quite fond of, and we actually named them. And since we were big families, we all had our favored ones, as you will see soon.

The first story is quite scary, and I actually think that I had some form of PTSD all these years because of this one and some others.

Well, I was about 6 or 7, and me and my brother Danny would take care of the cows and sheep. We had two cows and about 30 sheep. So, this one night, or evening better said, we went up the mountain to get the animals. Danny went to get the cows, and I went to get the sheep.

While I was walking up the mountain, I could see the sheep, and a little higher up I could see this big brown thing running towards the sheep and me. At first, I thought it was a big dog and reached for a rather big stone, or so I thought. Imagine a 6-year-old, how big of a stone can he lift in one tiny hand? Not too big.

And as I was preparing for battle, fed by all the stories I had heard of my brave ancestry, I got into a fighting stance and lifted my hand to scare this big dog that was about 10 yards from me now.

And this is when the earth went dark.

The dog that was not a dog got up on its hind legs, and this is when my little brain figured it out: this is no dog. This is a bear.

And I had three options: stand and fight and be eaten, option two, run for my life, and option three, play dead.

For some reason, my body was not listening to me. It didn’t want to fight, it didn’t want to run, and it didn’t want to play dead. Now, many years later, I know what happened, but at that moment I was like, what the hell is happening?

The bear was up on its hind legs and made a blood-freezing noise that I think was heard five miles from there. And as you can tell, I was not eaten by this gigantic beast. (It probably was not that big, but to my 6-year-old self, it was the size of a mountain.)

Since I am writing this almost 50 years later, I can tell you that it looked at me for what seemed like a lifetime, then spun around and ran away from us.

An interesting thing that I noticed was that the sheep didn’t run. I was like, what the hell is wrong with you? The full conversation will be in the book. 😉

But as it started running, I noticed that my body started functioning also, and I ran for my life, screaming and making a ruckus.

Well, for many years no one made a big deal about this, until in my developmental psychology class I told this story and Professor Nila, who is also my mentor and a friend, asked me, “Ambroz, did you have nightmares, issues with sleep and being alone, etc.?”

Now I know that probably many things have happened to me, and I am probably still paying their dues today.

So, my dear reader, if you had anything closely resembling this, talk to someone, because maybe, just like me, you have buried this somewhere deep in your subconscious mind, and trust me, it is waiting to rear its ugly head again as soon as you give it a chance.

And if you are thinking this is a made-up story, well, it’s not.

Now, after many years, I think about those days, and I have to say I lived in some crazy times. You know what happened after this? I was given a .30-06 rifle and bullets and sent back to the mountains every day. So no, I had no time to think about it, or dream about it, or anything.

Fear is, unfortunately, something that everyone living in the mountain’s experiences one day or another.

Well, two more stories and that’s that for this blog.

At about the same time, maybe a year later, I had the misfortune of being present at a neighbor’s house. And as I said before, we all had animals. They had two cows, and one of them grazed on some clover plant. We highlanders know this to be harmful to cows. Some people say no, but let me tell you my story, and then you look it up if you like.

As I said, I was at my friend’s house, and I heard a commotion in front of their house, so I came out and saw one of the cows lying on the ground. It turned out it had eaten the plant, and without medical help it would die. We lived in the village, so no medical help was coming. The only option was to kill the animal so that the meat could be used.

There were about five or six people there, and everyone was passing the knife around, but no one had the heart to do it. We used to get attached to our animals.

Me and my favored friend called Mugi.

So, the knife came to me, and I was like, OK, my dad showed me how to do this. (Stop for a minute and think, I was 6 or 7. Why was I shown this? Ahh, long story.)

Well, I got close to the cow, and I swear to this day I think the cow was crying. It was having a hard time breathing, so I did the deed, and to this day I feel bad about it.

Was I scared? Was there fear involved? Heck yea, there was. And maybe even today I am the way I am because of all the stuff that I went through. (A little crazy.) I don’t know for sure, but I have been working on myself for years. Am I there yet? NO. But I will get there.

The next story happened about 10 years ago, and maybe this just proves that the more exposure to bad stuff we get, the more resilient we become.

It was a summer night in the mountains, and I was bored. It was late at night, everyone was either sleeping or resting, and since I have insomnia (is this a direct consequence of my past traumas?), I needed something to do.

We had a lot of wood to chop for the winter, so I was chopping wood. Now, stop for a minute and think: how does a person in a wheelchair chop wood? Well, this one finds a way.

I was using a 5 lbs. hammer and chisels. It’s rather hard work, but I didn’t mind it. My brother John has a video of it somewhere.

So, I am chopping wood, and I get this feeling that someone is looking at me. Is this intuition? “Intuition is often the brain reaching a conclusion before the conscious mind knows how it reached it.” Compliments of OpenAI. 😉

Well, I turn around, and not five yards from me there is a wolf standing there, looking at me.

Now, I look at the hammer, then at him or her, and say in a calm voice, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to attack me.”

The wolf kept looking at me, and I kept looking at it, for about 20 seconds. Then it turned around and simply walked away.

What would you have done, my dear reader?

Sometimes I actually think there is something wrong with me. Or is there?

Do you know any stories like this? Share them with me, please.

So, my dear reader, fear will always be there. Maybe that is not such a bad thing. Fear reminds us that we are alive, that there are things we care about and things we don’t want to lose. Courage is not living without fear; courage is looking fear in the eyes and saying, “I know you are there, but you are not making my decisions for me.” I have been afraid many times in my life, and I am sure I will be afraid many more times, but I refuse to let fear decide how I live. Feel it, understand it, respect it when it is trying to protect you, but don’t let it become your prison. And when fear makes the world a little darker, you know what I am going to say… So be the light.