On the Nature of Fear. Part One: The Parable of the Bee

Here’s a story.

A man was working in his vegetable garden when he accidentally put his hand down on a bee and got stung. The man had never been stung bee before and he was shocked by how painful it was. His hand throbbed and throbbed all night.

The next day, the man was supposed to be pulling weeds but he was nervous. “What if a bee stings me?” He thought. “How am I supposed to protect myself?”

The man decided not to work in his garden that day; instead, he began doing research on anti-bee measures. He ordered bee poison from an insecticide company and protective clothing from a beekeeper society.

The next day, armed with his insecticide and covered head to foot in his, protective gear, the man returned to his garden. However, he hadn’t pulled two weeds before he noticed a small yellow jacket buzzing around the cucumber patch. Then he saw more bees eyeing his tomatoes, and what looked like an entire swarm hovering over his flower-bed.

Terrified he began spraying insecticide right and left. He emptied a can on the eggplants, covered his cantaloupe and dowsed his daisies. When he was satisfied that his garden was finally free of bees, he put down his spray can and walked back to his house. That’s when he heard it, a single plaintive buzz rattling brokenly from the screen door. A tiny wasp had somehow managed to make it inside his own kitchen.

The man was justifiably shaken. After all, it’s one thing to face bees in his garden but to find them inside his own house? What if they should sting him when he sleeps or eats his breakfast? Even worse, the man had a wife and family, what if they should be stung. What if they were allergic? This was literally a matter of life and death.

The man ordered protective clothing for his whole family which he insisted they wear day and night. You can’t be too careful when lives are on the line.

The man didn’t return to his garden. Instead, he watched from his window as weeds shot up between the rows and the vegetables began to wither from lack of water. And, no matter how much he sprayed, a few bees still managed to find their way inside his house. The man realized that it was only a matter of time before he or his family was stung again.

As far as he could see, there was only one reasonable decision left to him. If he couldn’t keep the bees away from his house, he’d have to stop the problem at the source. Dressed, in his most protective gear and armed with the latest insecticides, he tracked every bee in the area to its hive. It wasn’t easy, and he was stung more times than he cared to remember (proving, once and for all, just how much the bees had it in for him) but by the time he was done there was not a single bee left living in the county. The man walked back home sore and swollen but confident that no bees would bother his family again.

Unfortunately, for the man and his family, the vegetable garden, which they depended on for food, didn’t have much of a crop that year. The bees, which used to pollinate the plants, were gone and the family had to dip into their savings to survive. In fact, the whole county was in trouble. The economy, which was based on agriculture, had begun to collapse. People were out of work, children were starving but the man could now settle down to his dinner of canned beans secure in the knowledge that he and his family were finally safe from stings.

The End