It's a quite strange image: A man seemingly holding, if not swinging a cow over his head. The caption in translation runs something like "Death can no longer harass me."
What does this mean?
I have been aware of my fears ever since I was a small child. I was afraid that my parents would die, I was afraid of war (of the nuclear kind), I was afraid to cross busy streets, I was afraid of having no money. Most of the stunts my peers were capable of (and often performed) were things I would not do. I attribute to fear the fact that I have never used drugs or have had unprotected sex. The opportunities for both were there. In one case I asked my friend Tom, a regular cannabis user, if he and I could smoke together. He gave me a long look and then said : Martin, you're not the type. One could almost believe I haven't lived much without taking any of these or similar risks. But I am content and sure I'm not missing out.
Recently, I had an opportunity to think about fear. Fear has interested me for a while as I believe it is one of the two roots of anger (the other being sadness). Both fear and sadness at their most intense level probably cause an escape reflex, anger. Anger is a last-ditch attempt to get away from what scares us so and/or from what makes us so sad. Anger protects us from the vulnerability of fear and sadness.
It is obvious that fear and sadness are not feelings we could permanently protect ourselves from. They will make appearances in our life many times. So, what can it possibly mean to say that the ultimate fear/sadness--death--can no longer harass me? And if this ultimate fear can no longer harass me, what about the many other fears that come up daily? Are those fears even related to the ultimate fear?
This all has me wonder what fear is really about. The fear a child has to speak to his parents, the fear an employee has to speak to her boss, the fear a professor has before an important lecture, the fear we have of natural catastrophe, of war . . . What, if anything, do these fears have in common?
Primally fear seems to come down to survival. Fear protects us and does its part in insuring our survival. it protects us from needless risk-taking, it makes us aware of enemies. Fear helps us live longer before, ultimately, we will be diminished, reduced to nothing but cells and molecules that will become part of another organism.
In human beings fear is no longer simply about physical survival. Our complex mental systems have adopted fear also to protect us from shame, dishonor, guilt, another's anger, etc. All of these are, metaphorically speaking, forms of death. They diminish us, make us small and, often, makes us want to vanish.
To say that death can no longer harass me is another way of saying I have conquered fear. Fear of all sorts. It is also saying "I have found courage." Death can no longer diminish me.
But what is courage? What does it mean to be brave?
The Lion King's Mufasa comes to mind. His son, Simba, says to him "Dad, I want to be brave like you!" Mufasa responds "Simba, I'm only brave when I have to be." Mufasa's words seem to suggest that courage is is hardly the heroic, voluntary act we often think it is. Rather it is a forced act, coming perhaps from another fear. Mufasa is saying he is overcoming fear out of fear (viz. the fear that his son will be killed by the hyenas). Courage is fear. Therefore, it is probably wrong to think that not being harassed by death is about a kind of courage.
It turns out that fearlessness is an impossible state to achieve. No longer being harassed by death, however, is. While the former poses the absence of fear, the latter simply states that while fear is present it no longer has the power to harass. Fear cannot diminish me. My fear of being diminished is greater than a fear that could diminish me. It can not force me into silence, shame, guilt, etc. It cannot force me into death-like mental states. Not because I won't die, but rather because I know that I will.
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