Script 3
Narrator:
Journalist Sebastian Junger—who has reported from places like Afghanistan and Sierra Leone—talks about taking risks and controlling fear.
Sebastian Junger:
One of our primary emotions is fear. It is one of the worst emotional experiences we can have. Many people do almost anything they can to avoid it, but some actively seek it out. In many ways, doing things that make us afraid is crazy. No other animal intentionally risks its life for thrills or excitement, and yet humans do it all the time. We climb mountains, jump off bridges with parachutes, or kayak in dangerous waters.
I used to work as a tree climber, removing old branches from trees. Many times I climbed as high as 24 meters, and then I had to cut six meters of tree above me. It was very dangerous and I had to make just the right cut so that the top of the tree fell forward rather than back on top of me. To deal with my fear, I would wait five or ten minutes before I made the cut. But I wasn’t waiting for courage; I was waiting for emptiness. For those five to ten minutes, I would care and care and care, and then at some point, I would stop caring. Inside, I’d feel empty. Then I’d make the cut.
I imagine that every skydiver who steps out of an airplane or every bungee jumper who jumps off a bridge experiences the same thing. Maybe we’re attracted to these sports not because
they’re exciting, but because they give us the chance to face our biggest fear— that someday our lives will end. We’re the only animal that knows this, and we’re the only one that seems to need to practice for it again and again.
Questions:
- According to Sebastian Junger, why do we do things that make us afraid?
- How did Sebastian Junger deal with fear when he was cutting tall trees?
