Fear & Loathing in Montreal (And Everywhere Else)

fear and loathing halloween the heart of happy

Hey. It's Halloween. 🎃 So let's talk about FEAR. (not the internal "I'm so afraid of failure" kind—the very external "I'm afraid that scary man walking toward me on the street is about to shank me" kind of fear). I've been wanting to address this topic for a while, actually, but kept worrying that I'd come off too preachy. And then I realized I didn't care. I have strong feelings about a lot of the fears I'm witnessing in people these days. And I'm going to talk about them now. BACKSTORY. A few weeks ago, Montreal tried (and failed—for now) to pass a law that would ban pitbulls from the city. If it had gone through, all shelter or stray dogs SUSPECTED to have any form of pitbull in their DNA would have been euthanized. No proof of "pitbull-ness" necessary. And by the way, a "pitbull" isn't even a thing—it's a phrase we use to describe dogs with ANY characteristic of a bully breed (bulldogs, bull terriers, boxers, staffordshire terriers, etc). There's absolutely no science to what makes a dog a "pitbull."  So from the get, this law is flawed. But wait, there's more! Not only would all the homeless pups get murked, OWNERS of these breeds would have to pay a hefty fee for ownership AND be expected to muzzle their dogs AT ALL TIMES while outside (even while in their own yard, assuming the fence isn't tall enough to hide the pup's evil little face). Also, those family-owned dogs would have to be on leashes no longer than 4 feet at all times, too. It goes without saying that the quality of life for both the owner and the dog would diminish. No more dog parks, no more minding their own business on walks—these pups would either be hidden away or forever marked as "potentially vicious" in public. This kind of strategy would only serve to perpetuate the fear of them.

Here's why I care about this.

Three reasons. + first, I own a "pitbull." Ronin has American Bulldog and Staffordshire Terrier in his DNA. So, I'm personally offended by this law. + second, dogs don't have a voice. I know there are a lot of bad things happening in the word. I know animals are considered 'second class' to all people. But, I mean, let's not be dicks to them? They are as helpless as they come. So I guess I feel a need to stand up for living things that can't stand up for themselves. + third and most important, THIS PITBULL SITUATION IS THE PERFECT MICROCOSM TO EXPLAIN ALL THE CRAZY SHIT HAPPENING IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW. Hear me out. Right now, the political tone in the United States (and much of the world, actually) is centered on fear of the unknown. It's actually alarming how little we know about all of these things we're afraid of. Take the Montreal dog law: TECHNICALLY, it did pass. There was a debate, a vote, and more people voted to kill all the dogs than to not kill them. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess those "yes, kill all the dogs" people haven't ACTUALLY MET any pit-breeds. Their judgements were probably based on here-say and stereotyping. I believe we call that "branding." Back to politics. All the fear we're tossing around in the states—how many times do you think the fear-mongerers have interacted with their "enemies?" And many of us FEAR the fear-mongerers. But how many of us really know them—or choose to acknowledge their fears as real—either?

My point isn't to play the blame game or make anybody feel bad—I just want to provide some context. Let's up our "self-awareness" game, you know?

Now for the fun part: Exposure. Love. ☝️ Those are the two words that keep coming up for me. + First, exposure: if you have a fear of heights, the 'cure' is to jump out of a plane, right? + Second, love: the antithesis of fear? I'm going to need more time on this. It's time for a little story about baby Killian. When I was small (age 3 to 6.5) I lived in Tokyo. I was a tiny blonde child in a sea of not-so-blonde folks. People stared at me a lot. It was the 80s and the internet wasn't a thing and Japanese exposure to tiny blonde children wasn't really that prevalent outside of the movies. Women would ask to take my picture. They'd always rub my head. Totally normal childhood experiences. The flip side of this attention was a group of neighborhood boys who didn't like my brother or I. They'd speak to us in Japanese and taunt us for not understanding them. They'd push us and shove us and get real aggressive. Once they cornered us at the neighborhood park and got REALLY aggressive—and it's one of my more traumatic childhood memories. These boys terrified me. My brother and I became afraid to go outside by ourselves. Eventually, one of the boys' mothers found out about their harassment and dragged her son by the ear (literally—I saw it with my own eyes!) to our doorstep to apologize. I remember it so clearly. I felt so vindicated. Afraid, but vindicated. In the States, I am as basic as they come. White, blonde, female. But for a short time in my childhood, I was this "other." I am NO expert on race relations but I do believe that all people are inherently good. And nobody deserves to get pushed around just for looking a certain way. Years later, when traveling to Japan as an adult, I was nervous that I would draw attention to myself just for being blonde. But you know what? I didn't. You know why? Exposure. The internet. Movies. Accessibility of travel. One more baby Killian story (I promise, there's a point at the end of all this): My family would rent our English-speaking VHS movies at the Tokyo American Club. Being a child, I enjoyed cartoons. Duh. One day I picked up The Pound Puppies Movie, "The Legend of Big Paw." This is not an award-winning film. But there is a SCENE in this animated movie that has literally stuck with me for 26 years. It is burned into my brain. Sometimes when I'm doing dishes, this scene will flash into my mind and all the feelings I had at age 5 coming rushing back into the forefront of my brain and my heart explodes. In the movie, a handful of pound puppies are kidnapped by a bad man named Mr. McNasty (😂) and put into a "mean machine," which turns them into vicious guard dogs. Of course, the non-evil Pound Puppies are eventually reunited with these vicious pups—one of which was a mama-dog who had recently given birth to a litter of adorable babies. So—this scene: The adorable baby puppies are looking into the eyes of their mother WHO IS NOW A VICIOUS EVIL THING. And one adorable baby puppy goes, "Mama?" in the saddest voice EVER. And then as the mama dog is SNARLING EVIL SNARLS AT HER CHILD, the baby goes, "But Mommy, I love you!" (sob! 😭) And just like that the mean machine's curse is broken and the mama-dog instantly turns back into her beautiful, loving self and hugs all her babies. Then all the OTHER vicious dogs are shown love and they turn back into normal pups, too. (double sob! 😭😭) I mean: WHAT A METAPHOR! amiright? (ps. the coincidence that this is a vicious dog-related story is not lost on me.) But: LOVE. This resonated with me so deeply as a child because I GOT it. Because duh! Love is an insanely powerful tool and if it's used properly it can break open the most painful, scary walls. It's naive to think you can just shine a love-ray at someone's face and soften them on the spot, but I don't think it's naive to believe that showing compassion in the face of fear can absolutely break down walls. What I think fear-mongerers lack is an ability to love in the face of fear. And I think that comes from a lack of exposure in the first place. And yes, this is the moment where I become hella preachy, but I think it's worth saying out loud because even though it sounds so earthy crunchy and new age and lame, if you show another human person compassion, you're giving them permission to do the same. And even though you can't change everyone, more often than not, you're bound to be surprised by the warmth you receive in return.

Fear is important.

Obviously, fear has been a powerful tool throughout the course of our survival. It's OKAY to be afraid of what we don't understand. It's natural—and human—to fear things. If not for fear, we'd all have gotten eaten by lions or fallen off cliffs by now. So let's not undercut everyone who's afraid of stuff just because they're scared. Fear isn't the problem. I personally believe our lack of self-awareness training is. When we feel fear, we accept it for what it is—we don't ask ourselves if we've had enough exposure to our fear for it to be truly rational. And we certainly don't ask ourselves if showering our fears with compassion and love could curb the threat in the first place. So, before we know it, our fears morph into hate.

Can you love in the face of fear? 

Listen. I'm not saying that if you're being followed by a creepy clown with a knife, you shouldn't be freaked out of your mind. Obviously, approaching a knife-yielding man in costume and being like, "OMG I LOVE YOU!" is dicey. But when we fear ideas, concepts, or groups of people we've never really had exposure to, maybe it's worth asking ourselves—how can I safely get more exposure to this thing I'm unsure of? How can I, a pitbull-hating politician, have a meaningful sit-down with someone on the other side to gain more clarity on the subject? How can I show the other side—a side that I fear—compassion? And what am I REALLY afraid of? Am I afraid I'll get bit? Or am I afraid of everyone else's fear? Am I afraid the public won't vote for me unless I kill all the dogs? If I were to come from a place of compassion INSTEAD of fear, how would my behavior change?

Final thoughts.

There's so much more that's left to say. And I'm feeling very self-conscious about the sloppy writing in this particular piece. It's reflective of the fact that I'm still in thought-process mode and not "definitive answers" mode. I don't have the answers for how to 'cure' the world of all it's hatred and fear. I wish I did. But I'd love for us each to take a few moments to think about who and what we fear—and then consider why we fear those things. What would it feel like to show those scary things compassion—even love? I've got to be honest, when I think about showing the people I'm afraid of compassion or love—it makes me feel strangely powerful. To take the high road, to attempt to explore THEIR fears in a more compassionate, understanding way... it makes me feel like in some way I've got the upper hand. Because I'm no longer controlled by their feelings in an irrational, reactionary way. I'm clear-headed and capable of seeing these people as human—flawed perhaps, as we all are, but human. By offering compassion to the people in my life I don't understand, I give them permission to explore their feelings without judgement. This allows me to see a side of them that exists beyond their defensive ideologies. I've found that when I offer other people a safe place to explore what's really going on under the surface, they wind up coming to surprisingly relatable conclusions. I fear them less—and, in time, they seem to fear their fears less, too. It's no cure, but I'd like to think compassion is a step forward. I wonder if someone had sat down individually with all those folks who voted to kill those dogs and allowed them to really explore their fears out in the open, to dive in deeper into where their fears really came from, if they maybe would have come to a different conclusion about a breed they'd never met. A girl can dream. Onward and upward. ✨