Climbing over the fear wall

Manuel pointed out what looked like a dead salamander on the cold-shop floor. It sounds macabre, but there it was, curled up and looking very sad. My heart sank.

I thought about one of our cats, who's been missing since the summer. I hope he's OK. I like to imagine that he's living happily with a family who saw him playing between the buildings and assumed he was a stray. What an idea.

Everyday I hope that they would take him to a vet, where he will be identified as ours through his chip and find his way home. Then the rational part of me simply hopes that, wherever he is, he is happy in his new home. Maybe he is meant to bring the same joy he gave me to someone else.

Looking at the salamander, I wanted to give it somewhere peaceful to rest. So Manuel and I picked it up on a piece of paper. As I carried it through the studio, I could have sworn it moved its legs. And its tail. I jumped.

The people watching me walk through the studio laughed. And as I stood there holding this tiny creature — not even five centimetres long — my imagination went to work. I pictured it growing…. and growing. Until this tiny salamander had somehow transformed into a dinosaur. A raptor, like the one in Jurassic Park, raising its head, rearing back and taking a great big bite out of my arm.

I flinched and started walking faster towards the garden. I wanted that salamander off my piece of paper as quickly as possible. When I finally put it down, I felt sad for it. And relieved. And then a little silly for having been afraid.

Later, I realised how familiar that feeling was.

Starting and running a hot-shop in Berlin has sometimes felt remarkably like carrying that salamander across the studio.

The shop. The artists, project partners, the team I was destined to manage. The egos. My ego. The stress. The responsibility. The excitement and joy. I carry all of it as bravely as I can. But somewhere in the back of my mind there is always the foreboding feeling that this creature I am carrying was about to become a monster. It would grow teeth. That it would rear its head and take a great big bite out of my arm.

Fear does that.

It takes something that is right there in front of us — something difficult perhaps, something unfamiliar, sometimes even something fragile — and starts adding to it. A tail becomes a raptor. A difficult conversation becomes a confrontation. A mistake becomes a catastrophe. A bruised ego becomes an existential threat.

Before long, we are no longer responding to the thing we are actually carrying. We are responding to the monster we have imagined it might become. I've spent a lot of time climbing over that fear wall; and perhaps I've been thinking about the wall in the wrong way.

Maybe courage isn't reaching a point where the salamander stops frightening you. Maybe courage is noticing that your mind has turned it into a dinosaur — and then carrying it to the garden anyway.