Praise for
The Fear Paradox
“A delightfully fearless and deeply sensitive examination of that most primal and formative human experience. I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time to come.”
—Alan Burdick, author of Why Time Flies: A Mostly
Scientific Investigation
“Frank Faranda is an accomplished student of the mind, and especially of the interplay between fear and imagination. He’s not only a great thinker and writer, but also a terrific storyteller, keen observer of humanity, and gentle mentor on how we can do better.”
—Douglas Rushkoff, bestselling author and Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at CUNY/Queens
“A tour of psychoanalytical thinking around anxiety and how fear drives us, this is an insightful and informative book that challenges us to face our vulnerabilities so that we can be better and wiser.”
—Dr. Stephen Joseph, psychologist at the University of Nottingham and author of Authentic: How to be Yourself and Why It Matters
The Fear Paradox
How Our Obsession
with Feeling Secure
Imprisons Our Minds
and Shapes Our Lives
Frank Faranda, PhD
Coral Gables
Copyright © 2020 by Frank Faranda, PhD
Published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.
Cover and Interior Design: Jermaine Lau
turtle by anggun from the Noun Project
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The Fear Paradox: How Our Obsession with Feeling Secure Imprisons Our Minds and Shapes Our Lives
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: 2020933477
ISBNs: (p) 978-1-64250-057-8 (e) 978-1-64250-058-5
BISAC: HIS035000, HISTORY / Study & Teaching
Printed in the United States of America
To my wife and son
Table of Contents
When Fear and Imagination First Met
Chapter Four
The Future of Anxiety
Chapter Five
Fear of Our Own Minds
Chapter Six
Can You Imagine?
Chapter Seven
Imaginative Revolution
Chapter Eight
The Fear Paradox
Chapter Nine
A Turtle
Acknowledgments
Bibliography and Suggested Reading
Endnotes
About the Author
“Fear can transform us in ways that fundamentally alter how we perceive our world.”
—Henry L. Chambers Jr.
One summer, not so long ago, I got a taste of something long forgotten—the joy of riding waves. I’m not talking about tame little crests, I’m talking about waves that slam you into the sand and carry you for twenty yards. This was what I found one afternoon at Marconi Beach on Cape Cod, riding waves with my twelve-year-old son.
I was already familiar with the waves at Marconi. I had spent a summer on Cape Cod when I was in my twenties, and rode those waves many times. In those days, I was much stronger, but even coming back as an older man, the same excitement drew me in. To my surprise, my son ventured into the water with me. He doesn’t typically like riding waves, but I think he could see everyone’s enjoyment and decided to jump in. People from age ten to sixty were out there having a ball. I wasn’t consciously thinking that the joy I was feeling riding those waves was a result of the proximity to danger, but in hindsight, I suppose it was.
For me, with my son, I was in heaven. We had each ridden about six waves when, all of a sudden, we looked out toward the horizon and saw a huge swell emerging. Along with this swell came a powerful undertow that made it difficult to move. I looked over at my son, and he was preparing to ride. I dove into the wave as it came crashing in on me, and I rode it to the shore. It was big and it threw me about. When I was able to get up, I looked over and saw my wife standing on the beach, pointing at my son. Slowly I made out her words: “He’s hurt!” She was pointing and I was trying to wipe the water from my eyes to focus. I looked at my son. He was standing upright, holding his arm. That was when I saw it. His arm was bent at the elbow, but bent the wrong way. I ran to him and saw the bulge on his elbow. I saw his face: the pain, the fear. The exhilaration in me turned sour in my stomach, and after that it was simply one step after another