by Alberto Reyes Pías
I Have Been Thinking About Our Quotas of Fear
The first Alien movie was shown on Cuban television one Saturday night. My entire family had gone to bed, but I—then a teenager and an absolute science-fiction enthusiast—stayed up to watch the movie alone.
It was fascinating and terrifying. Although I had the living-room lights on, the rest of the house was dark. Between scenes, I would turn around to look into the darkness, as if my chair were part of that spaceship, as if that horrible creature were going to come out of the screen and wrap me in its tentacles.
We are fragile beings, extremely vulnerable and quite incapable of predicting the future. And that makes us easy prey for fear. In fact, our greatness does not lie in never feeling afraid, but in building a story in spite of our fears. And the first step toward doing that is precisely to recognize our fears, give them a name, and decide what we want to do with them.
We are afraid of freedom. We are afraid of not knowing what to do when we are able to live without chains, of not knowing how to take control of our own destiny once no one is telling us what to do. We are afraid of a society in which we will have to dialogue and reach agreements about the ways in which each person wishes to exercise his or her freedom.
We look at the ruined country in which we live and see only destruction: homes, roads, the electrical system, water service, transportation, education, the healthcare system… and the people, deteriorated both physically and morally. Our souls collapse, and deep inside we think: “If change comes, what will I do? How will I do it? Will I be capable of finding my place in a different reality?”
And deep down, in that unconfessable part of the soul, we complain, curse, and protest—but we prefer that everything remain the same: within what we know, what we can manage, and our miserable sense of security.
We look at those who, one day, walked through their fears and left, and we see them building a dignified life. But when we are told that change is possible, we think that they “settled in a place where a free system already existed.” And we prefer to believe that their sacrifices and their efforts to rebuild their lives from nothing are less difficult than “fixing this.”
We hear about other countries that managed to free themselves from communism, and we envy them. But immediately we tell ourselves that “we are an island,” or that “the Cuban character is different.”
Because, in reality, change frightens us. The new frightens us.
That is why there are always people willing to inform on others, repress, defame, and support those who seek to make attempts at freedom fail. They do not do it because they believe in the virtues of this system. Like everyone else, they go hungry, live without electricity, suffocate in the heat, have to throw away spoiled food, cannot find medicines, live through the nightmare of transportation, and many have children who have emigrated… But change terrifies them, and they prefer the familiar darkness of the cave to the unknown risks of the light.
Fortunately, there is also the other side: those who do not know what the future will be like, but are clear that they do not want this present. Those who speak, write, protest, take to the streets, and bang their pots and pans… because, in some way, they have understood that phrase attributed to Saint John Chrysostom:
“The Magi did not set out because they saw the star. They saw the star because they had set out.”