How To Get By In A Hostile World, Thursday
"Okay, so today I want to talk to you about something a little more passive than lying. Fear," Atton said. He helpfully wrote the word on the whiteboard. "More passive in one way, anyway. Fear's a reaction most sentients feel in the face of threats, whatever those threats might be. It can be a help, and it can be a hinderance, and it can be deadly."
"When you're afraid, your body dumps a ton of hormones into your body," he said. "Exactly what these do is different for everyone, but generally speaking, they increase your heartrate, up your blood pressure and your blood sugar, start pumping more blood into your major muscles while drawing it from the smaller arteries so you have less of a chance of bleeding to death, and you stop digesting. You also lose depth perception and get tunnel vision, while at the same time, time seems to slow so your reaction time goes up."
He shrugged. "Most of that doesn't sound so bad, does it? Except, y'know, if you get too much of it, your judgement gets impaired, you lose fine motor skills and your body temperature goes all over the place. You might even freeze up and lose the ability to respond entirely. So figuring out how to channel your fear is a major life skill that might actually keep you from getting, I don't know, mauled by a Rancor or something."
He put down the marker. "There are different ways to handle your fear. You don't want it to go away entirely, because it's an important tool to get you moving or fighting or whatever it is you need to do to survive. But you also need to be able to keep a cool head to get out of that situation, or you'll do something stupidly impulsive."
He sat down on his desk. "I'm a member of the Jedi Order. Most of the Jedi put a lot of stock in mantras. In fact, the catchy Jedi Code is all about mastering those kinds of sudden-onset emotions. There is no emotion, there is peace; there is no ignorance, there is knowledge; there is no passion, there is serenity; there is no chaos, there is harmony; there is no death, there is the Force. It's nice and useful if you at the very least believe in the Force, but probably a little less useful for the rest of you. The general idea isn't bad, though. Repeating certain phrases to yourself over and over again can help you get control over your mind, and thus the situation. But that can be anything. I once knew a guy who'd just repeat curses to himself over and over again, worked like a charm every time."
"What also tends to help is planning in advance. Make sure you have tools on you that don't require fine motor skills that you can yank out at any time to lob someone on the head, or hack your way out. Having a few lies prepared is also useful, if it's all about talking your way out. Another option is breathing exercises - kinda goes with the mantra thing. Keep control over your breathing, you start getting more control over yourself."
Not that that had ever been Atton's thing, but hey, it could work.
"At the end of the day, though, the most important thing you can do to cope with fear is figuring out how you function," Atton said. "Now I'm pretty sure the school would give me hell if I threw you into a situation where you had a legitimate reason to fear, so I'm not going to do that. But we're going to talk about it. Think about situations where you got scared. How'd that feel? How did you react? That kinda thing. Do you make mountains out of mole hills easily? You'll have to work on that. Don't know how to deal with the fine motor skills thing? Work on it. Figure out mantras, breathing exercises. Go."
"When you're afraid, your body dumps a ton of hormones into your body," he said. "Exactly what these do is different for everyone, but generally speaking, they increase your heartrate, up your blood pressure and your blood sugar, start pumping more blood into your major muscles while drawing it from the smaller arteries so you have less of a chance of bleeding to death, and you stop digesting. You also lose depth perception and get tunnel vision, while at the same time, time seems to slow so your reaction time goes up."
He shrugged. "Most of that doesn't sound so bad, does it? Except, y'know, if you get too much of it, your judgement gets impaired, you lose fine motor skills and your body temperature goes all over the place. You might even freeze up and lose the ability to respond entirely. So figuring out how to channel your fear is a major life skill that might actually keep you from getting, I don't know, mauled by a Rancor or something."
He put down the marker. "There are different ways to handle your fear. You don't want it to go away entirely, because it's an important tool to get you moving or fighting or whatever it is you need to do to survive. But you also need to be able to keep a cool head to get out of that situation, or you'll do something stupidly impulsive."
He sat down on his desk. "I'm a member of the Jedi Order. Most of the Jedi put a lot of stock in mantras. In fact, the catchy Jedi Code is all about mastering those kinds of sudden-onset emotions. There is no emotion, there is peace; there is no ignorance, there is knowledge; there is no passion, there is serenity; there is no chaos, there is harmony; there is no death, there is the Force. It's nice and useful if you at the very least believe in the Force, but probably a little less useful for the rest of you. The general idea isn't bad, though. Repeating certain phrases to yourself over and over again can help you get control over your mind, and thus the situation. But that can be anything. I once knew a guy who'd just repeat curses to himself over and over again, worked like a charm every time."
"What also tends to help is planning in advance. Make sure you have tools on you that don't require fine motor skills that you can yank out at any time to lob someone on the head, or hack your way out. Having a few lies prepared is also useful, if it's all about talking your way out. Another option is breathing exercises - kinda goes with the mantra thing. Keep control over your breathing, you start getting more control over yourself."
Not that that had ever been Atton's thing, but hey, it could work.
"At the end of the day, though, the most important thing you can do to cope with fear is figuring out how you function," Atton said. "Now I'm pretty sure the school would give me hell if I threw you into a situation where you had a legitimate reason to fear, so I'm not going to do that. But we're going to talk about it. Think about situations where you got scared. How'd that feel? How did you react? That kinda thing. Do you make mountains out of mole hills easily? You'll have to work on that. Don't know how to deal with the fine motor skills thing? Work on it. Figure out mantras, breathing exercises. Go."