Original Oratory from the 2013-2014 Speech season. I earned a 6th place trophy at a varsity tournament and 1st at a novice tournament with this speech. I might have gotten further, but I had my appendix taken out at the height of the season, so I was not able to attend many tournaments. This year, however, I plan to come back fighting and appendix free.
I have a confession to make -- I have achluophobia, or fear of the dark. I suppose it started on my fourteenth Halloween when, in the spirit of the holiday, I decided to watch the horror movie, Saw, after everyone had gone to bed. Bad decision. I then became convinced that the killer himself was hiding inside my closet, watching me sleep. I grabbed an 8-inch chef’s knife from the kitchen, the most intimidating I could find, and, creeping slowly toward the coat hangers, I stabbed! I opened the door carefully to see my kill. And, as I had known somewhere in my subconscious all along, the maniacal culprit was a coat and two shirts.
I went and plugged in my Winnie the Pooh night light, left over from my third birthday, and after some deep breathing exercises, I thought: why do we fear? Of course I knew I was safe. I had been every night of my life. What is it about the dark that makes our hearts beat just a little faster?
I pondered this question for nearly another hour until the answer finally came to me: we do not fear the dark at all, we fear what lies within it.
It was then that I decided that this is the nature of fear: we are not afraid of the entity itself, but the unknown consequences. Unfortunately, the threat of these uncertainties never leave us. As American author Ursula K. Le Guin explains, “the only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.” These uncertainties are a centrifugal force in all of our lives, as we are never sure what will happen on a day to day basis. That’s today’s subject of conversation: the unknown. Now, there is a fear called arithmophobia, or the fear of numbers. Luckily, I don’t have that fear, so we’ll stick to three areas: first, the culture that arises out of uncertainty, second, the implications that the unknown has in all of our lives, and lastly, how we can find comfort in that which we cannot control, and hopefully by the end, we’ll reach a conclusion regarding the very nature of the uncertain. There will always be a part of life that is left in the dark. It is only by finding light in this darkness, embracing the unknown, that we find the essence of life itself.
Now, one fear that plays largely into the concept of uncertainty is doomsday phobia, or fear of the end of the world. And, for those of you who are wondering, no I did not just make that up. Although there is no official Latin name for fear of the apocalypse, it is in fact more common than one might think. There is a sector of people calling themselves “Doomsday Preppers” who prepare for the end of days. Be it the end of electricity, an epidemic, or economic collapse, doomsday preppers devote their entire lives to the principles of uncertainty, as much of their time is centered upon preparing for an event that is completely ambiguous. A recent CNN article examines the costs of living this lifestyle, stating that one Australian man has spent “$350,000 preparing for ‘the end of the world as we know it.’” And, he is not alone. James Rawles, popular doomsday prepper and author of several non-fiction books, states that “130,000 people regularly read his survivalblog.com, where he and numerous contributors provide tips on how to prepare.” People place so much value on the unknown that an entire culture has developed from it. Not that there is anything wrong with being a doomsday prepper, we all need a hobby, but the fact that a lifestyle has arisen out of uncertainty highlights its prevalence in our society: and though we may not feel the need buy an underground bunker over the matter, there is a large amount of anxiety revolving around the end of our known world. We adapt our lives, our cultures, to fathom life’s uncertainties, when in reality, the unknown is just that: unkown. Unfortunately, many of us would rather live in fear of these uncertainties, than learn to embrace the changes.
The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology conducted a study in November of 2010 that stated most people were far more comfortable with the known than the unknown, regardless of the possible benefits. “In one study, [college] students preferred the course requirement described as the status quo over a new version... [irrespective] of whether the new version meant more or less coursework.” The vast majority of people prefer old methods over the new, simply because they are “more certain.” We as a society have developed a psychological schema that longevity is equivalent to “goodness.” While this traditional ideology may work for some time, it will inevitably hold us back in the future. A study by Deakin University “examined levels of life satisfaction and perceived control” divided into two categories: primary control, aspects of life which one can change of their own volition, and secondary control, which one cannot. The study, conducted with “101 older adults living in a residential care facility, and another 101 older adults who lived independently in the same community” examined aspects of life like safety, connection to a community, and health. It was found that those who were able to adapt to instances of secondary control, the changes which they had no control over, were able to prosper in all facets of life. Embracing the unknown, accepting these changes, allows us to work to our most promising potential. We must be able to make use of what we have today, rather than fear tomorrow.
But, what if we were to face life’s ultimate uncertainty: not knowing whether we had a tomorrow. I discovered this firsthand in 2006 when my friend, Cameron Allen, was diagnosed with cancer. A rare form of brain cancer, particularly in children, Cameron was forced at a young age to cope with an illness from which he was unlikely to recover. As time went on, he began to contemplate the uncertainty of his own death, at thirteen years old. However, from the time of his diagnosis, Cameron proclaimed that he would embrace his condition. Despite seizures and 12 hour surgeries, he assured his friends and family that cancer might beat his body, but not his soul. “Even if I don’t make it, I’m not worried,” he said, “because I know if cancer strikes me down, I will only become more powerful.” Cameron passed away on September 14th, 2008. But, his spirit lives within all of us. It was some time after his passing that I realized in life, we are not inherently drawn to fear the uncertain, we are not obligated to turn away from that which we do not know, as we have a choice: to abandon the unknown, or to harness it, and in the words of Cameron, allow it to make us all the more powerful. There are times in life when hope seems absent, when our faith is tried and the future is unclear. It is in these times that we must remember: this is when we are most powerful, when we are stuck down into the world of the unknown, we are illuminated in the darkness of life.
Though I am not completely cured of my achluophobia, I have begun to see it in a different light. I’ve upgraded to a more mature nightlight, SpongeBob SquarePants, and I have started to accept that there are some aspects of our lives which we will never be able to foresee. Today, we learned what it means to live an uncertain lifestyle, to fear the new, and finally the power we can gain from embracing the unknown, but how do we combat uncertainty? For this, there is one simple solution: we don’t. There is no path that we can take, no amount of money we can pay, no amount of questions we can ask that will make the unknown... known. Uncertainty cannot be solved, because in reality, it is not the problem. The conflict lies in how we cope with it. Shall we choose to live in fear of tomorrow, or allow ourselves to be free from the inevitable by accepting the unknown and permitting it to make our lives all the better? All we know of tomorrow is that it will be different from today. The uncertainty of life is a gift. And of that, we can all be certain.
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