Chapter 6: Fear of Living

Control Is An Illusion

Miss Vikander, a Ph.D. student of mine at the Psychology Department of Geneva University, was sitting in as an observer on our next therapy session. 

Peter was very much ok with that.  

The young woman looked striking in a tight navy skirt and a buttoned-up white blouse and heels. She was wearing dark-rimmed glasses and with her blond hair pulled back in a bun, she looked slightly more sexy, in a bookish kind of way, than I considered appropriate. Seeing Peter’s first reaction, I could not help but wonder whether she would distract all my male patients, be it without deliberate intent of course. I took a mental note to talk to her about the dress code. We should take it down a notch for the sake of professionalism.

Anyway, we'd better get started.

“Peter, first of all, about your Vegas story. You really took me with you, all the way to Caesar’s Palace. The way you described the manipulative and intricate ways of a big corporation, I felt I was totally there, part of the crowd. However, I could tell you were not really connecting with others on any meaningful level, other than business. Is that correct?“

Pulling his gaze away from Miss Vikander, Peter turned to face me and said: “Hmm, yes Doc, but I was not looking to connect with anyone. I was in self-protection mode, as you told me to. The easiest way for me to do that was to switch my personality features to their corporate settings.”

I could not help but laugh: “That’s quite a funny expression Peter, and fascinating. How do you do that exactly?”

Peter was very much at ease talking about this: “Doc, I find that focusing on professional stuff helps to push out my concerns about drinking and also my darker thoughts. The sterile concepts and best practices of the business act as contaminants.”

“In what way?”

“Well, buying and selling have an elegant precision to it. The stakes of this zero-sum game are clear and I will make damn sure that I am on the winning side of the equation every time. So yes, whenever I need it, I can hit reset and enter this whole parallel universe which I control and master. Life becomes a spreadsheet.”

He took a sip of water and continued: “I realize of course that the world of commerce is nothing but a fake empire.”

“What do you mean by that, Peter?”

“Sorry, Doc, I should explain. I am a fan of Brooklyn band The National and Fake Empire is one of their signature songs. It’s about a generation lost to disillusion, young people who cannot deal with day-to-day reality and decide to pretend that the world is full of magic. Much like the make-believe microcosm I was made a part of, there in Vegas.”

“I see. But despite the fakeness of it, you seem very at home in the realm of big business?”

“Commerce holds no secrets for me, unlike life itself I should say. The constant flow of business transactions makes me feel like I am in control of my destiny. Or at least it is a sweet and welcome illusion." 

As an afterthought, he added: "When I am in selling mode, I feel liberated, because the rules of the game are transparent. Not opaque as they are in real life.”

I took a moment to let this sink in. I looked sideways and I saw that Miss Vikander was furiously scribbling down notes on a legal pad.

"Peter, I would like to understand better. What do you mean when you say the rules of life are opaque?"

"Existence to me is erratic, Doc. When it comes to life and death, the axioms are oblique. Often, the workings of the basic principles seem incomprehensible to all but the highest experts in their domains, like neurosurgeons removing a rare brain tumor or the guys at the CERN Lab discovering the god particle to explain why you and I are able to exist. The verdicts of these pundits, even when false or destructive, are beyond question. They can play god without you and me being able to challenge them in their fields."

"In other words, Peter, life is beyond your control?"

"Exactly, Doc, and I hate that."

“I see, Peter. You are not alone in that sentiment. And science makes so much progress that, one day, these things will become clear even to you and me."

He kept his silence.

"Peter, you referred earlier again to your darker thoughts. You mean your fear for death, right?”

Peter nodded solemnly.

“Would you say that this preoccupation with death is your primary concern in life, Peter?”

He looked very alert now. I could tell this was very close to his core.

“Yes, I would, Doc. Every morning, I wake up to yet another day without a solution to my mortality problem.”

He looked at me carefully, to check my expression. When he saw that I was not about to scoff at him, he continued: 

”Every day I realize, as if for the first time, that my life will eventually end. And every day, this weighs down on my chest, like a foot of fresh earth on top of a coffin. My coffin.”

He had a faint smile on his face, but it was the smile of somebody in pain.

“I know I must sound like the quintessential neurotic in a Woody Allen movie, but to me, this is very real. Most mornings, I wake up in great spirits and I feel fine for a couple of minutes. Then this sudden terror comes over me like a wave, I have no control over it. It is this morbid dread that runs deep within me.”

“I can assure you, Peter, that most people are at times overwhelmed by primal anxiety, but it is indeed rare to experience this constantly. Most people only feel this way when confronted with death or loss in their inner circle. Your primal fear seems to break through the cracks every morning before your defenses are intact.”

Peter was not really listening, he was still focused on trying to convey to me the exact sentiment. He said: “Fallen is the word that best describes the sinking sensation in my stomach. I feel like Adam waking up to discover he’s been thrown out of Eden. It feels inchoate, you know like it is just the beginning of something terrible and the worst is yet to come.”

I decided to let him get it out of his system. Articulating the fear as precisely as possible is a good basis for healing.

“A circuit breaker in my brain puts a stop to all existential thinking every time it is confronted with that same contradiction: Life instinct telling me to avoid death at all cost while my brain points out that all such effort is futile.”

He sighed: “Often, I think the whole concept of dying must be an epic misunderstanding, an unfortunate misinterpretation of some biblical allegory. Death as the unavoidable last page of the book of life? I just cannot believe that. All my efforts to grow, my constant failing and learning from my mistakes, all of that must lead to some satisfying conclusion. I feel I am constantly preparing for something greater still to come?”

“Peter, you again have expressed it very well. You fear to live because you fear to die, simple as that. And the irony is that you will only be able to face the prospect of death if and when you have had the experience of fully living. Do you see the Catch 22 you find yourself in?"

Peter was in deep thought. I could see he was struggling to grasp the deeper meaning of what I'd said so I added: "Earlier you referred to yourself as a neurotic. Another famous psychologist, Otto Rank said once: The neurotic refuses the loan of life to escape the debt of death."

He looked up as if he'd seen the light: "I see Doc, what can I do to live my life more fully?"

You repress your fear of death by using a number of defense mechanisms which in turn restrict your freedom to live and grow as a person. I would like to explore those defenses with you.”

“Ok, Doc. I like where this is going, tell me more about these defense mechanisms.”

“Peter, we all want to escape somehow from the fact that we will die. There are two modes of coping with this existential anxiety, both based upon a denial of death."

Peter was hanging onto my words.

"One type of person deeply believes in their own specialness and personal invulnerability and is convinced at an unconscious level he is protected from death. The other type puts their faith in the existence of an ultimate rescuer. This could take the form of a religious belief that detoxifies death, for example.”

“I see. Which type am I, Doc?”

“I would like you to answer that, Peter. Let me ask you this, do you feel that you control the events of your life, or do these events occur independently of your actions? In other words, do you feel you control your personal destiny?”

Peter took a moment to ponder my question and then said: “I’d like to think I am in control of my destiny, Doc. And more and more so, as time passes. The irony of life is that you get better and better at it and you come to expect it to further spiral upwards. When you get to marry the girl you love and you have children together, when you get promoted up the corporate chain, you actually start to believe you have superpowers. That eventually you’ll be able to also dodge the final bullet and get away with not dying at all.”

“You have just answered your own question, Peter, about which type you are.”

"Do you mean I believe I am above the fray? Nothing can touch me?"

“A person like you, oriented towards specialness as a defense mechanism for denial of death, is often a compulsive achiever, someone who wants to stand out from the crowd and has difficulties to accept their own frailties and limits."

"So my ambition on the job all these years had to do with my fear of death?" 

"Yes, Peter. Your climb to glory in your profession, even as a high-functioning alcoholic when you were still drinking, has been extremely important to you in terms of an immortality project.”

“So I think I am special, then? Reminds me of that song by Shania Twain.”

I could tell he was on thin ice, trying to joke his way out of a precarious situation.

“Peter, I think that unconsciously, you believe you will not die because you think you are not like everybody else, you’re special. When I say this to you, what is going through your mind?”

He was done joking. He looked serious and said: “Well, somehow, what you say rings true. My gut feeling has me believe that I am too clever to die, that only a freak accident or an external attack could kill me. Something as prosaic as old age or sickness cannot get to me. I should just not be stupid and travel to an Ebola-ridden country or buy a one-way ticket to Mars. If only I respect these basic rules, I should be fine. That sounds crazy, right?”

“No, Peter, not crazy at all. It sounds unfamiliar to you because you have never made this intuitive belief explicit, until now.”

“Wow, this does stir things up in me, Doc. I have a feeling we are looking at things from a new angle here. Can I tell you what I am thinking?”

Peter looked first at me and then at our trainee. Miss Vikander had been following the discussion in the background and now she felt self-conscious because Peter seemed to address the question to the both of us. She nodded.

I smiled and said: “Sure, Peter, go ahead.”

“Well, I feel I am entitled to live. Wait, I'd like to put it even stronger, I feel it is my birthright to be alive. My dying would mean an outside force has rigged the game, because when it comes to mastering life, I am an expert."

"What do you mean by that, Peter?"

"Well, Doc put a roadblock in my path and I will find a way around it. My mind protects me by using logic, the most basic design code in the universe, to shield me against all randomness which fate throws at me.”

He said all this with a defiant passion.

“What I hear Peter, is that mastery and control are obviously very important to you, and you rely on your mind to guide you. But uncertainty is a fact of life and we must coexist with it. Your mind cannot control what happens to you. And death, also your own, is inevitable. You will have to face that fact.”

I waited for a reaction but there was none so I continued: “To you, thinking is the key to solving all mysteries in life. Constant thinking provides you with some relief from anxiety but also severely restricts your daily living. There is no room for spontaneity or creativity, for personal growth. There is only black and white logic.”

“But I have always thought it was my mind that made me special, Doc.”

“Your intellect is above average, Peter. What I am saying is that often your mind seems to control you, not the other way around."

Peter was listening.

"Only when you are in business mode, you use your mind as a sharp tool of logic and you feel you’re at the steering wheel. But outside of your professional life, your personal mind, your ego takes over and controls you.”

I saw this resonated with him, so I said: “Your mind ruminates constantly. Remember the picture in Amalfi you showed me in our very first session, the one you associated with your compulsive thinking even at the age of twenty-two? You need to understand that your mind is a two-edged sword.”

Peter was staring at the ground. I could see he was considering my words carefully.

After a minute he said: “This is hard to swallow, Doc. I have always been proud of my intellectual prowess. But now I see that I am using my mind in the wrong way.”

“Peter, as I said earlier, you overthink things. You should take a step back and learn to observe your mind and detach from it. The story of you, your personal narrative, that is not who you really are. It is just your ego talking.”

In true style, Peter answered: "It is indeed so that I get wrapped up into concepts and abstractions to escape from reality. The more sophisticated the ideas and symbols I use to describe my world, the further I seem to get away from death and decay, it feels like.”

“Beautifully put, Peter. But the conclusion is that you need to stop thinking. Dis-identifying from your mind terrifies you because it feels like you lose grip on your reality. And yet, that is the way out.”

I saw I had to reframe it so he would understand better: "You are the victim of painful, long-lived emotions like these primal fears which you never worked through properly. These hurtful emotions linger below the surface and trigger you to construct sophisticated intellectual systems to justify your suppressed fears. In short, we need more feeling, rather than more thinking. You need to connect with your pain, face the music, so to speak."

Peter looked pale in the face. This had been quite intense. It seemed only ten minutes ago that we started the session and yet I saw the hour was almost up.

“Doc, I need some time to digest it all, I feel exhausted.”

“Sure, Peter. Do me one favor, please. In preparation for our next session, dig deeper and question why you fixate on controlling everything with your mind. Think about a time when you broke through that illusion of control.”

Tipping point by Peter Baer

Late November 2011. My plane touches down at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport and I fast-track through Russian border security using my frequent entry passport. I rush past a crowd of tourists, my mind anticipating a million things that need to happen on this trip.

My local Russian business partner picks me up at Arrivals and during the two-hour taxi ride into Moscow city center, I have a heated conversation with him over the sales results which are not what I like them to be: “What do you mean our biggest deal is slipping? You know I have committed this order, we cannot back out now!”.

I hear myself raising my voice with all the pent-up stress, accumulated on the flight over here. I know I should not be angry at him. The Russian government has stopped funding this particular project and there is absolutely nothing anybody can do about it. But I clearly need to vent and I take it out on him.

When I’m done yelling, I feel anxious and uncomfortable. This job has been getting to me lately. The travel has me in a constant state of jet lag. My blood pressure is high and I have been drinking way too much.

I feebly try to make amends: “Andrei, let’s have dinner tomorrow night at that great place on Tverskaya, just off Red Square. Bring your wife. I am buying.” He nods and drops me off at my hotel on Prospect Mira. I can tell that he is boiling inside but he knows better than to retaliate now, with me in this state.

I stand for a moment in the freezing cold, watching Moscow traffic, glad to be out of the overheated Lada cab. I try to take a deep breath but I instantly smell gasoline, so I quickly step inside.

I am queueing to check into Russia’s largest hotel, the two thousand-room Cosmos. I treasure fond memories of this Soviet-era establishment where I spent a memorable week with my Graduate Class ‘88 just before the USSR fell apart.

The look and feel of the place did not change much over the last 20 years. It is 10 pm and still the hotel lobby is crowded like Grand Central Station, with a confusing mix of Russian businessmen and international tourists. Heineken neon signs flash over the many hotel bars, where stunning Ukrainian girls are still offering their enticing brand of seduction at democratic prices. Another fond memory.

The check-in clerk is surly and curt, with a face like a boxer’s, affirming my stereotypical memory bias. While waiting in line, melancholy overwhelms me and I lose myself in bittersweet retrospection.

July 1988. Along with two hundred of my fellow International Economics Majors, I land at Moscow’s old Sheremetyevo airport. The mood of the group is elated. With four years of University under our belt, we are masters in the dynamics of the capitalist free market and we are intrigued to meet with its exact opposite, the infamous Soviet plan economy. 

Especially the renowned Moscow black market fascinates me and I personally plan to test it to its limits. Guts and glory.

I am wearing a flight bomber jacket just like the one Tom Cruise is sporting in Top Gun, this year’s hit movie. I have been advised that I can sell this gear for a great many Soviet Rubles on the streets of Moscow.  And so it happens. That first evening, I don’t need to look far for a buyer. People approach me nervously and whisper in subdued voices:  “I give you Rubles” while tugging at the sleeves of the jacket. After a hurried negotiation, I settle on a significant amount of currency, leveraging the scarcity of Top Gun bomber jackets in a city starved for Western symbols. A sellers’ market if there ever was one.

With a thick wad of 100-Ruble bills, I proceed to rent the hotel Ball Room for the night and with my fellow graduates, I throw a legendary party, sparkled with plenty of Sovetskoye  Shampanskoye, the Soviet brand of sparkling wine. A night not easily forgotten, with friendships sealed for life.

At the end of our stay, the Cosmos presents me with a bill for the damaged hotel property. It seemed a great idea at the night of the party to fire Champagne corks straight up and through the ceiling panels of the Ball Room. I paid that bill willingly, money well spent on a new ceiling, I guess. As they say: “Don’t trust a brilliant idea unless it survives the hangover.”

Thinking back about that trip behind the Iron Curtain, I can still taste the adrenaline rush of us roaming around through an economic wasteland where the normal rules do not apply. The memory stings though because I am now in the exact same place but I do no longer have that sense of excitement and endless possibility. Ironic because you could call me successful on all counts that mattered to me as a student and yet I feel only pressure. Guts and glory, without the glory.

My consciousness returns to the here and now when it is finally my turn at the check-in counter. Without a smile, the clerk says: “Dobro poz ha lovat' v Kosmose.” Welcome to the Cosmos. This strikes me as very funny as if I have just entered a parallel universe. 

The receptionist clearly does not see the humor in this and for the next fifteen minutes he proceeds with inspecting and stamping my passport as if to say: “The USSR came and went but this is still Russia.”

The wear and tear of the journey have me wondering whether it is all worth it, as I wait for the elevator to take me up to the twentieth floor which houses the Russian version of Executive Suites. While the elevator is going up, a heavy weight presses me down.  As if everything relies on me while at the same time I have very little control.

In my room, I am quick to take a Baltika beer from the minibar and I lay down on the bed with the bottle unopened. I hold the cold glass against my forehead and I close my eyes.  

I hesitate. I already had plenty of wine on the plane over. I am aware that I am using alcohol to calm my nerves and this has become a steady pattern. I‘ve read it’s an addiction when you want to stop and you cannot. What if you do not want to stop?

Well, I am torn and powerless when it comes to alcohol. Nowadays, it is more and more difficult to hold out even until noon for my first drink. I realize this is bad and panic grips me.

I open the bottle.

Several beers later, I drift into an uneasy sleep. As if my subconscious cannot wait to tell me something, I am propelled into a dream:

I am fast approaching a tipping point. The tipping point of what exactly is not clear. What I know for sure is that as I come nearer, nothing can be done, and once past it, nothing can be done about it either. At the same time, I have the strangest sensation that I am not just heading toward the future, but the future is coming towards me with increasing speed. The sensation seems to accelerate until everything suddenly stops and I am in Slow Time. I have never heard of Slow Time but somehow I know this is the time that existed before my birth and the time that will continue after my death. I feel very calm as if this is a rite of passage which I have been preparing for all my life. A sense of well-being covers me like a warm blanket.

I wake up suddenly with a tremendous sense of relief. The hairs on my forearms and neck are standing out and my heart is beating fast. I have a cathartic sensation of reawakening: 

I am alive and this is my time.

I feel an urgency to capture this essence before it evaporates. Thoughts come in rapid succession:

It’s in my genes to constantly scenario-plan and to think contingency. What I expect from the future affects my actions in the present and, therefore, impacts the future. I am in a closed loop. I should let go of this illusion of control. Just let things be. Accept loose threads. Embrace imperfection and insecurity.

I breathe slowly and deliberately to calm myself down. I rearrange my thoughts like books on a shelf.

I see a picture in my minds’ eye of a mountain top with a sign stuck in the snow that says: 2 pm on Everest.

I realize this is something I read on the plane over. Top mountaineer  Ed Viesturs said: “Getting to the top is optional, getting down is mandatory”. He instituted a life-saving rule: “Regardless whether you have reached the top or not, by 2 pm you turn around to make sure there is enough daylight left on the way down to reach a lower level camp before the evening cold kills you.” 

It occurs to me that in every situation, I seem to build in a turnaround point to avoid a point of no return that may or may not be there. It has become a way of life and it makes me anxious because full control is impossible.

The meaning of my dream slaps me in the face.  No need for a 2 pm turnaround every single day of my life. Why don’t I just live a little on the days that I am not climbing Everest?

I look out my window, high over Moscow city. The sun is reflected in the golden onion-shaped domes on the many churches I see. Smoke is circling up in the sky and is touching the clouds. It looks like it will snow tonight as if nature has decided to mercifully cover up the man-made mess down below.

I am tired and lay down on the bed again. I fall into a deep sleep with no dreaming at all, at peace with myself and the cosmos.

Author's Note

Version 5 uploaded.

Reviews

[Ted Kniffen]

This is moving along. The story is good, although I'm unsure why Miss Vikander was introduced to the story and then basically ignored. And why Peter would be unaware of the term 'defense mechanisms. two minor things. ReedWrite & JayG addressed the grammatical issues. Keep going

[Barbara Walker]

I think you are great at conveying concepts that I can barely think for myself, let alone communicate to another person. You consistently held my interest and attention!

[Stan Lee]

Still following along and finding this intriguing and very impressive. Thanks for sharing.

[ReedWrite]

I'm seeing some tense issues (ie., present and past tenses), and a few grammar/punctuation errors. These are, however, easily fixed with editing. I like the story line, but there are places it gets bogged down..it's like there are patches that have square corners rather than smoothly rounded edges that allow the reader to flow through the story, if that makes sense. Don't get me wrong...the story is a good one, with a great deal of potential. You are on the right track, with a strong story and a good grasp of where you need to go with it. Keep writing. It will come.

[Raylene]

Dear friend I won't review you until you have recently reviewed me - Raylene

[Philip Muls]

Dear Raylene I will do so as soon as I find the time

[JayG]

Primarily, you, the narrator, are reporting and explaining events. But while the voice you hear as you read is filled with the emotion of your storytelling performance, For the reader it's a monotone. Try having the computer read it to you and you'll hear it.

And because you are telling the story as a verbal story, you focus on making the reader know the sequence of events. Your characters emote as required, without thinking, hesitating, rephrasing, or any of the things real people do. Your protagonist doesn't evaluate what's said and done, he just does and speaks. How real can that seem to a reader who came to you to be entertained, not informed?

When we personally tell a story it's a performance, and how we perform matters a great deal, because the emotion is in the performance. You speak the words as the character would because you know the story and the character. The reader must guess. But take your facial expressions, gestures, and body language away; take your vocal intensity, cadence, and all the tricks of storytelling, and it becomes a dispassionate recitation by someone unknown.

My point is that story happens, it's not talked about, it's lived. So your reader wants to experience not learn about it. They want to be terrified, to fall in love, to hate and rage for the same reason your protagonist does. In the words of E. L. Doctorow “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

And that takes a lot more then the book report and essay writing skills we got in our schooldays. That takes the tricks of the trade the pros take for granted.

Spending a bit of time acquiring them is time well spend.The library's fiction writing section is a great resource. My personal suggestion is to pick up a copy of Dwight Swain's. Techniques of the Selling Writer. It's the best I've found to date

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/

[Serge Wlodarski]

Is Miss Vikander a red herring, or will she be part of the story? What happens when an unstable person reaches a tipping point? Inquiring minds want to know.

Well, it's 2pm on Everest so I'm going to switch my personality settings to their off-duty mode.

[wordman]

i like this version,like the way you broke it up
in sections