Courage, like so much of life, is non-linear. Lewis Hamilton has won more races than any driver in the history of the Formula 1 World Championship. Several times in his 15-year career he has had crashes that shredded and splintered his 1100-pound arrow shaped car at speeds well above 100mph. Most recently his title rival, Max Verstappen, caused a crash that end with with Verstappen's car on top of Hamilton's car.
After every crash, Hamilton was back in the car the next week, racing at speeds over 200mph into corners with 5-g side loads.
But Hamilton is very afraid of spiders. Very afraid.
In this month's cover story in Vanity Fair magazine about Hamilton, he tells the interviewer that during the race each year in Australia, he insists on a high floor in the hotel, to make extra sure no big Australian spiders are in his room. Hamilton says he watched the movie Arachnophobia as a child and has been afraid of spiders ever since.
All of us are complex accumulations of genetics, experience, motives and attitudes so there should be nothing surprising that a person who is very brave in one situation is afraid in another. And yet, that ideal of the Medieval Knight says the brave person should be afraid of nothing. It lingers in our imaginations.
My Dad was a boxer. He wasn't afraid of facing another man and fighting with his fists. His last fight was in a warehouse with a 30-year-old truck driver who took a swing at him. Dad was 62 years old. He knocked the younger man out. Yet Dad was afraid of doctors and hospitals. I lost every fist fight I was in and love hosptials.
Recently, I was talking to a friend about his recent trip to several countries in Europe. He had a seven-hour layover in Helsinki and decided to go and see the city.
I could never do that. Ride the Alps and Pyrenees and hills in Israel above 50mph on descents--awesome. Leave the airport and have to pass back through security and customs? Not me. I would be worried the moment I left the security area.
Riding across Paris in traffic is pure excitement. I don't imagine what could go wrong. But dealing with bureaucracy, I can't easily imagine things going right.
Is it years in the Army that makes me distrust bureaucracy? I don't know. Nothing in my childhood could have done it. Until I flew to Basic training at 18 years old, I had never been in an airplane. Our family never traveled further from Boston that a couple of trips to Cleveland, Ohio.
On the other hand, I have a fear of needles that is physical and deep. I don't look at needles when I get IVs and blood drawn. But that fear is straight out of childhood. In the basement of our home was this horrible torture device.
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