Crowing About Fear.

AuthorPuterbaugh, Dolores T.
PositionPARTING THOUGHTS

POE IS A CROW who lives near our home. (Yes, he is named after Edgar Allen, not one of the Teletubbies.) We recognize his unique "caw, caw" and have heard him (not actually sure on gender) in an argument with another crow who once beat Poe to his daily treat of a cracker with peanut butter left on the deck. He will alight on the table when 1 am outdoors just a few feet away. Our familiarity does not breed contempt: true to the nature of crows, he will land nearby and send out the "is it safe?" call to his clan. When sufficient positive caws are heard, he dines.

Recently, Poe is rather silent as he visits. This is something that crows do, and it has nothing to do with assuming ] am harmless. It is because the small worry (will the crazy bird/cat/squirrel lady become strangely and suddenly violent?) now is outweighed by the existential threat of alerting predators to the nearness of Poe's nest. Yes, it is nesting season and the big worry means Poe will not bother with small worries.

This is one way in which, perhaps, crows are more realistic than humans. People cope with fear all sorts of ways. Some drink too much; some smoke; some shop. Some binge-watch; some binge-eat. They reach out and electronically tap loved ones on the arm, over and over, seeking endless reassurance via text messages. Others go directly for the dopamine fix: a physical thrill via food, sex, or excitement of some other sort to keep fear at bay. That this reduces your bacon cheeseburger or romantic partner to the equivalent of a benzodiazepine is a problem. The bacon cheeseburger will not mind, but people tend to catch on if they have been demoted to a drug for temporary forgetfulness rather than loved as a person.

One creative way people deal with fear is to ... worry. Yes, worry: fretting, obsessing, and typically the kind of worry that jumps from subject to subject, never resting on a place long enough to find a solution or a bearable assessment of risk. It is a mental exercise of thought with a mild degree of emotional distress. It usually is just enough distress to keep a person preoccupied, apparently tuned out from the moment sometimes, and at other times riveted with attention until the next worry topic leaps to the forefront of attention.

Worrying is a way of avoiding big fears by keeping the mind's conscious focus on small ones. It is the old-fashioned, neurotic, worried-well person's way of holding the closet door closed against the existential terrors inside.

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