Journey Into Fear

Forget bravado: 'he did not fear facing death....'.

And forget cliché: 'there is nothing to fear but fear itself....‘

It is indeed human and humble to be able to say that in an oncoming tempest, the though of loss induces fear and face up to it. What are the elements of fear?

I. Loss of respect

Thinking about it in terms of layers, the first would be loss of name and respect. I am thinking of Dick Fuld Chairman of Lehman brothers and of Martin Sullivan, head of AIG. Each was respectively the premier organizations in their sector, one in investment banking and the other in insurance. One day they were kings of their world literally, commanding an army of minions to go hither and thither. And another day, one firm is gone and the other is teetering and on life support with the government. What about the reputations of these erstwhile gentlemen? The first admits that he gave out fat bonuses to his top execs just before the firm collapsed. The second admits to a half-million dollar corporate boondoggle, AFTER they received aid from the government. Stripped of any respect, what a person works for all his or her life, lays in tatters - with anyone in the know (particularly those impacted by these actions - such as investors and employees) ceding no credit to any good works they may have done in the past. Not net-net. Just the singularity of unmitigated disaster.

So, as we live our lives of responsibility, taking care of our teams, our employees, our families and our stake holders - let us make sure every decision we take is deserving of self-respect first!

II. Loss of wealth

In the book 'The Black Swan', the author Nicholas Taleb visits a very well regarded money manager in his vast estate. Room after room - a regular Kubera's palace. Years later he visits him again - all his wealth has vanished. All based on a wrong bet (on currency movements, I think) With the stock markets plunging around the world, and people's retirement accounts taking a beating. This is a real fear and concern for millions around the world. My heart breaks when I think about my 85 year old neighbor, whose net worth has been reduced in half in one and a half weeks. Think about that - a life time of work and honest savings - gone!

The ground beneath our feet is a lot shakier than you might be imagining. The consequences of the global financial instability and lack of business confidence could have devastating impacts in every corner of this small interconnected globe. No trite recommendations here. If you are invested in cash, inflation will eat it up. If you are invested in securities, your net worth can be wiped out. If you are invested in real-estate, the bubble is about to get you. We have all grown up with the mantra of diversification of our portfolios. But what if the full portfolio starts sinking? My good friend wrote to me yesterday, lets get ready to eat 'Mac and cheese' for the next 3 years! Prudence in outlays of your spending is the only thing we can control. So take care, everyone.

III. Loss of health

I never realized the connection between stress and health until the demise of a couple of friends in the last few years. Our mind gets so wrapped up in our day to day troubles that we develop tunnel vision, and with psycho-somatic impacts setting in, there are real detrimental outcomes to health. The most impactful story I remember is the brother of Lou Gerstner. Lou Gerstner as you know went on to become the Chairman of IBM and really turned that ailing giant around. He wrote the excellent book 'Elephants can dance' about his experiences. His brother was an equally rising star. But his career trajectory was impacted mid-stream by tragic illness. With all the modern medical technology at our disposal, we must not be careless. Get your check-ups, do you exercise, develop a broad set of interests and stay healthy!

If your health is impacted, you cannot focus on # I and II above....

IV. Loss of mind

I have been a avid reader of books on the subject matter of the 'mind & self' for three decades now. Whether it is medical, psychological, biological, spiritual, computational, general interest - I find myself drawn to all of them. For this is the greatest mystery. Who are we? What is our identity? Why are we different from other life forms? Why are we different from each other? Why am I, I?

But two things induce fear, on this front. First in one of the biology books on the mind, I read some years ago, the frontal lobe of the brain is where our identify rests, physically speaking. In operations done (particularly after accidents), where the frontal lobe part of the brain was removed, the person does not know who he or she is. Not memory mind you - but identity! So the person functions perfectly, but with no identity.

Another example of this is Alzheimer's disease which impact a fairly high percentage of the older population. The brain cells slowly fade and memories of the lifetime fade away like ghosts. So think about your own situation and all the lifetime of experiences you have accumulated. And now picture either the sudden loss of that or a gradual. In either case, what was all the accumulated set of memories for? This is where the accumulated wisdom of Zen powerfully plays in. The past is an accumulation of memories.

The future is wildly unpredictable. The moment is now. Savor it. I am savoring this moment right, doing what I enjoy the most - writing an essay...

V. Loss of life

There is no one line of song that is more haunting, poetic, incisive than Kannadasan's lyrics in the Tamil Song 'Veedu varai uravu....' When the stanza ends with 'Kadasi varai yaaro...', Kannadasa's has summed up all the philosophy questions ever raised in just 3 Tamil words..... translated 'to the very end, who to accompany us?'

This great question is asked by Nachiketas of Yama in Katha Upanishad - that question results in a dialogue that is profound and revealing. But no question that in the face of loss of life the first four losses pale. It occurs to me that this is one definitive event we can count on. So all the accumulated wealth, and name and memories and good health and enjoyments, all have to be left behind as we dissolve back into the salt of this earth.




I actually think acknowledgment of this loss is rather liberating. 'Thalai ki mela vezham pona piragu, jaan poona enna, mollam poona enna (when there is a flood over your head, what does it matter if the water is 6 inches or a foot above your head)?!'

Do what you really want to do, do what makes you happiest, since the final destination is absolutely, remarkably, unfailingly the same for all of us.

Summary

Any one of the losses above - i.e. name/respect, wealth, health, mind, life can be devastating. But as you take the mental journey of fear, and you compound each loss, one on top of the other, the prospect is truly frightening. (It is rather superficial to just dismiss these fears - an easy way not to dismiss them is to keep the images of our family in mind, and then ask the question, can we handle these losses?) However, some reflection in solitude, about the worst case scenario with the crushing compounding of these losses could be rather liberating. I could sum up this liberation by saying, 'Always do things that increase your self-respect, not worrying about the coming and going of wealth, take care of your health and do the things you enjoy the most each and every day'.