Let us come back to Pascal's plank above the chasm. There are various ways to get over fear. I have discussed jokes and philosophy on my first attempt. But I will distinguish two others.

Obviously, the first one, and probably the most efficient, is to take a pill, or get a shot of something. If the molecule is powerful enough, or swallowed in sufficient quantity, we might just sit down on the plank, looking around a bit dazed. Maybe we would even fall asleep. But there seems to be something unsatisfactory in the notion that we need a pill to get over fear.

It is not clear to me what exactly is unsatisfactory about it. Pills, of course, may have secondary effects (they seem to have, in fact). However, I don't think that this long term practical consideration goes to the heart of the matter. It seems taking pills would still be unsatisfactory if they were proven to be quite safe. What is more important is that you might not always have your pills with you. You are in a place you hate (say on a funicular which has just started up) and you suddenly realize you left the plastic box with your safety pills in your other jacket.

There are, in fact, two points here. One is practical, and quite obvious. The other is metaphysical: in order to overcome your fear, you depend on something that is external to you, and moreover, something that you might not always have with you. This metaphysical point leads to a third aspect. It seems it would be morally wrong to try and overcome fear in this simple, chemical way. Though his characters sometimes advocate the use of anxiolytic pills (for instance in Mystery Murder in Manhattan), Woody Allen, in an interview, makes a similar point about drugs: “I've always had a strong feelings about drugs. I don't think it's quite right to try and buy your way out of life's painful side by using drugs” (Interview with Frank Rich, Time, April 30, 1979). But again, what would be morally wrong about using drugs, or pills?

The second way to overcome fear, which they teach in behavioral therapy, is to start a routine involving both the mental and the physical: concentrate on your breathing, and breath slowly, emptying your lungs and filling them again up to the brim. There is a physical aspect to the process, which I mentioned during my first attempt on Pascal's plank, but there is also a spiritual element. Concentrating on my breath with sufficient attention helps me not to think about the fearsome void. Your thoughts come back towards yourself and to this most basic, vital, element of yourself that breathing is. Reciting a poem may also work: the mind is looking for the missing words; the body, and the breath, is taken by the rhythm of the poem; your fingers may be tapping the feet of the verses. Singing (though it is not easy to sing at the top of your voice in a crowded metro) and praying would be variations on poetry. The key feature of praying, in this perspective, would be the reciting, the incantation, if you will, and the reference to a god would be quite subsidiary. These routines seem more satisfactory than pills. Why?

They do depend on something that is external to me: a poem that someone else wrote and that I have learned already, or language itself, which I received when I was a child, or the air itself which I breath. Of course, the difference with pills is that I always have with me the ability to try and remember a poem, or language, or air. Or, if I don't, then I am in such trouble that my vertigo does not really matter anymore. But this practical difference does not touch the metaphysical and moral points. What's wrong with pills that is not with poetry?

Pills, poetry, jokes, philosophy: there is, in my mind, a hierarchy in these different ways of overcoming fear. The Addict just swallows a few pills, and hopes they get him through the ordeal. It should be frightening to surrender in this way to chemistry. Except, after the pill, the Addict is no longer worried by such concerns. The Poet makes more of an effort. He tries to focus on the poem, but the fear is calling him from the chasm below Pascal's board. He slowly repeats the words of the poem (he has learned it before), figuring out the next rhyme so as not to hear the fear, not to look down, for then he would not be able to go on. However, before he knows it, the Joker has looked down into the chasm! Horrific! He won't make it. Unless he can make them laugh. Them, that is, his tormentors, his various selves, the dark forces that surround him. He starts talking, and miraculously, his brain, the it below his mind, comes up to give him a hand. It turns out to be quite funny. The more they laugh, the more comfortable he feels. He ends up standing on one foot at the brink of the board, and pulling faces. It is hilarious.

The Philosopher would be remain serious. He would not need to turn into a clown. Of course, he would be afraid at first. But then he would reason that the board is large enough, and try to understand where the Fear comes from, so as to reduce it to a particular fear, a kind of atavism maybe: his brain reacts to the view of the emptiness, and that is its way of telling him to be careful. Right. The Philosopher, now completely reassured, would just look elsewhere, into the sky maybe, thinking about the stars and the infinite universe, etc., etc.

(Just in passing, the Addict, the Poet, the Joker, and the Philosopher are all male: they are like four selfies with myself pulling various faces.)

The point is: the more we go up the hierarchy, the more control we have on our fear. That is the principle at the root of this hierarchy, gaining control over fear. There is a paradox. The will to remain in control is at the bottom of my anxiety. My fear, on Pascal's plank, is certainly (at least in part) a fear of losing control. I am afraid that I would not be able to stand still. Yes, I fear, I dread I would lose control. Strange. The very notion that produces the fear defines what I see as the best way to overcome it. It is for the exact same reason that I have been aiming for Philosophy and that I am subjected to the Fear: I want control. If I could accept losing control, if I was not scared of losing control, then I would not try to be a Philosopher; I would just take the pill. But I would not, for I would no longer need it.