Originally published on Substack. Read and subscribe here. https://deferocontra258173.substack.com/p/when-evidence-calms-fear?r=3ouoi0
I was raised in a culture that celebrated intuition and looked down on logic. Logic belonged to engineers and accountants.
Intuition belonged to the much more exciting group of people, artists and visionaries.
But here’s the thing. Logic, when combined with evidence, has a remarkable ability to relieve unnecessary fear. Let’s talk about that ability.
Here are two real-world cases.
During my university years, I ventured to a wild area to spend a day and a night alone in nature. As I lay on the ground in my sleeping bag under the stars, I heard a branch snap somewhere nearby among the trees.
Uh oh, I thought. Was I going to get eaten by a bear or cougar? That was a frightening moment.
I asked myself how likely was that, really? Then I reached for logic in my mental tool kit. I asked myself, what is the behavior of wild animals, really? Would they walk up and take a bite out of a fully clothed strange creature with a funny smell laying on the ground in a sleeping bag? No, they wouldn’t do that.
It’s not that I’m an expert in the behavior of wild animals. Instead, my conclusion simply made sense. Common sense says that predators don’t casually walk up to a large and unfamiliar lump and take a bite.
What about the sound? Well maybe it was a deer and not a hungry bear after all.
That experience taught me something I’ve used repeatedly throughout my life. Sometimes logic can help, provided it’s grounded in reality.
Here’s another example.
Lately, I suffer from fragmented sleep. One theory holds that a part of my nervous system remains hyper-vigilant at bedtime and during the night, even when I think I’m calm. How can that be? Is this the root cause of my sleep problem? Let’s look more closely.
Here in Vietnam, when I walk along a single-lane road or even a two-lane road, the oncoming motorbikes often aim themselves directly at me. It seems they are approaching at a high rate of speed! Wow! Scary! Who wouldn’t be alarmed.
So what was the real problem? It’s my overly “aroused” sympathetic nervous system. Every approaching scooter causes a subtle jolt of alarm—even though no damage is actually done.
What am I going to do about it?
Should I:
- Somehow upgrade the driving habits of Vietnamese motorbike drivers? Nah. Not a chance.
- Get aggressive? Step in their direction when they get close? Nah. Not productive and dangerous.
- Use an open umbrella as a shield which would force them to keep their distance? Nah. Not practical. (Just picture it. That’s hilarious)
I would say the above alleged solutions are all defensive and reactive in nature. None are worth pursuing.
Let’s take a deeper look at the perceived problem itself. In other words, even though my nervous system instinctively sees danger, is this an accurate perception? How real is the danger in actual fact?
Since the odds of me changing “them” are virtually nonexistent, what if I changed “myself”?
I decided to become an observer instead of a victim.
I started measuring.
- How close do they actually come?
- Is this distance consistent?
- Has anybody else been getting hit?
My research sample was small, so I looked for other evidence. After all, I’ve got limited time and a limited sample set. I wanted a reliable answer as quickly as possible.
So I brought in other observations. Here in Vietnam, small children learn “the feel” of motorbikes before they can walk. Families eat beside the road every day. They sit only a few feet from passing scooters. If collisions were common, this entire Vietnamese way of life couldn’t exist.
I put two and two together and concluded that motorbike drivers dodge obstacles as skillfully and naturally as breathing. It’s second nature. It’s a flow not an obstacle course.
The next time a scooter came toward me, my body still tensed—but less so. Instead of believing the alarm, I remembered the evidence. Within a short time, my nervous system began catching up with reality. It began to relax.
Mind you, for the pedestrian, it’s important to walk in a steady and predictable way. No sudden moves. This way, the scooter driver is able to make an accurate calculation of your position two seconds from now when he or she whizzes by.
For me, dealing with the motorbikes was like skydiving.
I’ve made just over one hundred jumps. They look terrifying. Yet statistically, they’re safer than many other recreational activities. Appearance and actual risk are sometimes very different things.
One can’t get to the truth by focusing on the drama itself.
Fear isn’t always evidence of danger. Sometimes it’s evidence that our picture of reality needs updating.
Logic and evidence won’t eliminate healthy fear—we still need it when danger is real. But they can soften unnecessary fear by helping us see reality more accurately.
