Fear

I’m sitting in an airport right now, about to embark on a living embodiment of fear.

I hate flying. Perhaps it’s just irrationality, or perhaps it’s that burden of knowledge that there is a thousand-ton vehicle about to go careening down a finite runway towards a seemingly-infinite ocean, only to, a few hours later, come careening down towards another finite strip of asphalt at exceptional speed. It’s just the physics that gets me. None of it seems at all safe – and while I know that there are far fewer plane accidents than train or car accidents each year, it doesn’t alleviate my terror at the prospect of breaking up at thirty-two thousand feet above our little marble.

I also hate spiders, and needles, and probably more things than I have a right to hate.

Suffice it that I am often afraid, almost always without cause. So why do I get on the plane? Why do I keep going? If I am terrified, why don’t I just not do any of it?

Family

So, I’m sitting here at Gate A-two-one – that’s what they keep saying, as if we wouldn’t figure it out if they just said “A twenty-one” – awaiting this coach of (what I imagine to be) death. I’m going to Sunny California, going to see my inlaws. As I await my inevitable demise, I quietly think to myself, “Fucking inlaws, if it weren’t for them, I could be home. Enjoying the cold and playing video games.” I’m burning off the rest of my vacation time for the year, so I’d be taking vacation in any case, but so motivated was I by that pretty-lady-who-feeds-me, that here I await the reaper.

So I’m motivated to fly, against (perhaps) my better judgement (and certainly against my will), but I will perservere to make that scary-wife-lady happy, because it’s Christmas, and while Santa Clause and Jesus Christ may be bullshit, my wife’s happiness isn’t. So how can I get through my fear? How can I deal with the fact that in less than three hours, I’ll be hurtling through the upper atmosphere?

Finding Confidence

When I’m coding, there are – many times – changes which need to be made, but appear to be hard. Changes that are sweeping, changes that involve large deletions, or philosophical changes to how the project is approached. Sometimes it’s about using a new tool to solve an old problem. Sometimes it’s about realizing a certain cross-cutting concern has been slicing into the codebase in a nonoptimal way. It’s a hard change because the team might be against it, or maybe the team is for it, but they don’t understand how the tool is “really” supposed to be used.

Similar to flying, we are often motivated by necessity to make these changes, but are hesitant due to fear. We’re afraid that the thing won’t work, that our whole infrastructure will come tumbling down, that everything will generally go to shit and we’ll get fired. Or worse, we won’t get fired, and will have to live with the shame as we pick up the tattered peices of a product.

The risk may be great, and that risk is directly proportional to the fear it induces, but I’m reminded of a quote from one of my favorite books:

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

When it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

– Bene Gesserit Litany against Fear, Dune, Frank Hebert

The problem of rejecting risk due to induced fear is that – oftentimes – that induced fear is phantasmal. It’s not going to crash and burn, it’s not going to drive the company into the ground. In fact, the opposite – it will build the company up.

Make Fear Fuel

I peruse, often, Ward’s Wiki. Amongst the thousands of amazing articles, there is one which I dearly love – MakeFearFuel. In it, the argument is made to – rather than shirk from risk due to fear – to embrace it for the same reason. If you’re afraid of something, it’s natural, it’s okay. Fear is designed to protect you. However, Fear is not designed to paralyze you. Fear is a tool to enable you to run faster and further, to be more aware of your actions and surroundings – these latter two especially are of great use to a programmer. The fear from risk comes from the unknown – the inability to see all paths. However, that self-same fear can be harnessed, and made to work for you, to make your product better, to see further, to build something better.

As the article suggests, Don’t think of it as fear – but rather – excitement! You must permit fear – not ‘allow’ or ‘be okay with’, you are in control of fear – to pass through you. Fear is subservient, not superior, and when you understand the use of fear as fuel, and moreover, when you begin to apply it to your life (and not just programming, but everywhere), I think you will find yourself more amenable to making good changes, better at mitigating undue risk, and better at recovering from problems when shit really does hit the fan.

For my part, I’m being called to board this black coach, to sit amongst my brothers and sisters before death. I will not fear, fear is the mind-killer, I will face my fear, and give fear the finger.