I’ve been thinking about “fear” a lot lately, and not just its biological basis but its heightened presence in our lives this past few years. This musing was initiated by the front page of the Oct. 11 edition of the Daily Camera, which doesn’t usually scare the bejeebus out of me (well, apart from the occasional letter to the editor). Two stories featured side-by-side kicked my amygdala, that little peanut-sized structure at the base of my animal brain, into high gear, causing a familiar cascade of fear-based physical symptoms including racing heartbeat, sweaty hands and a touch of nausea.

Laid out on the left, a photo showed an otherwise sane (I presume) human being willingly walking a 0.8-inch-wide slackline hundreds of feet in the air between the tops of the First and the Third Flatirons. Placed on the right side of the page is a story about the malfunctioning of an elevator at the old Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine near Cripple Creek, the beyond-tragic death of a tour guide and the seven-hour entrapment of twelve tourists 1,000 feet below ground.

The close juxtaposition of acrophobia- and claustrophobia-inducing stories elicited a “classic fear response,” even though I was physically far removed from both scenarios. Science can explain much of the neural circuitry and various small bits of proteins and other molecules that signal our “flight-or-fight” center to engage. But we are far less certain about “why” it happens at certain times and not others, often out of proportion to the danger faced.

There are obvious situations when reasonable fear can protect you from immediate danger. But I don’t think a strong fear response while reading the Camera from the comfort of my office chair with a purring cat in my lap is reasonable. Maybe it was a strong empathetic response for the people going through those experiences? Perhaps, but other scary scenarios in the news don’t elicit that primordial fear in me. No, if I am being very honest with myself, I must admit that the fear I felt was primarily due to a vivid imagination that subconsciously put me in those situations above and below the ground, respectively.

Fear’s hair-trigger presence in the deepest, oldest parts of our brain makes it a powerful motivator. It also makes it incredibly easy to manipulate, most notably lately by the extreme political efforts underway to make people feel threatened (literally trying to scare up their votes). Causing fear of the “other” or the “unknown” as a threat to “us” is hardly a new tactic in seeking control. But it does seem particularly intense this year. We know from history that a society whose members choose to live in a distorted reality based solely on fear of others and ideas they don’t understand is destined to fail. Yet we seem determined to repeat this history.

How can we tamp down the fear, or at least take a collective step back and ask if it is a reasonable response to things we hear or see from would-be leaders? There is no easy solution, but we could try to understand better both our own fears and those of others, which might at least partially restore the ability to rationally discuss differences and come to some shared understanding that would allow everyone to thrive. Perhaps such a utopian-adjacent sentiment isn’t all that realistic or helpful, particularly in the heat of the moment we are in and the immediacy and intensity of the fear it elicits.

But I don’t want to just throw in the towel, à la Jean-Paul Sartre’s play “Huis Clos” (No Exit”), featuring the oft-quoted line “L’enfer c’est les autres” (“Hell is other people”). That is just trading unattainable utopia for inevitable dystopia. I guess the best action I can think of right now (besides voting, of course) is to try a little harder to avoid being another person’s “hell.” That includes working a bit more on my empathy for the innate fear felt by others with whom I disagree, especially if their behavior and beliefs elicit my own angry fearfulness. Perhaps responding by inviting a shared examination of our respective fears and the beliefs they are trying to protect could be a good start, though certainly not sufficient.

Fintan Steele is an ex-Benedictine monk and priest with a Ph.D. in biology/genetics. He spent most of his life in science communications, including scientific publishing and, most recently, for biopharma and academic centers. He and his husband live in Hygiene. Email: fsteele1@me.com.