"The Gift of Fear"

[fiefoe]

Gavin de Becker


Gavin de Becker's book must have done so much good since it first came out more than twenty years ago. And it's gratifying to know that now more people get the message "'No' is a complete sentence.'

• I’ve presented these facts about the frequency of violence for a reason: to increase the likelihood that you will believe it is at least possible that you or someone you care for will be a victim at some time. That belief is a key element in recognizing when you are in the presence of danger. That belief balances denial, the powerful and cunning enemy of successful predictions.
• That’s because we want to believe that people are infinitely complex, with millions of motivations and varieties of behavior. It is not so... We can tell ourselves that violence just happens without warning, and usually to others, but in service of these comfortable myths, victims suffer and criminals prosper.
• The way I broke down the individual elements of violence as a child became the way the most sophisticated artificial intuition systems predict violence today. My ghosts had become my teachers.
• Among all the weird ventures in America, could you ever have imagined a literal warehouse of alarming and unwelcome things which stalkers have sent to the objects of their unwanted pursuit, things like thousand-page death threats, phone book-thick love letters, body parts, dead animals, facsimile bombs, razor blades, and notes written in blood?
• In A Natural History of the Senses, author Diane Ackerman says, “The brain is a good stagehand. It gets on with its work while we’re busy acting out our scenes.
• the root of the word intuition, tuere, means “to guard, to protect.”
• In his book The Day the Universe Changed, historian James Burke points out that “it is the brain which sees, not the eye. Reality is in the brain before it is experienced, or else the signals we get from the eye would make no sense.” This truth underscores the value of having the pieces of the violence puzzle in our heads before we need them, for only then can we recognize survival signals.
• Our intuition fails when it is loaded with inaccurate information. Since we are the editors of what gets in and what is invested with credibility, it is important to evaluate our sources of information.
• Cynthia also talked about what she called “car body language,” her ability to predict the likely movements of cars.
• “I am capable of what every other human is capable of. This is one of the great lessons of war and life.” —Maya Angelou
• Though anthropologists have long focused on the distinctions between people, it is recognizing the sameness that allows us to most accurately predict violence.
• When we accept that violence is committed by people who look and act like people, we silence the voice of denial, the voice that whispers, “This guy doesn’t look like a killer.” <> Our judgment may classify a person as either harmless or sinister, but survival is better served by our perception.
• One thing that does predict violent criminality is violence in one’s childhood. For example, Ressler’s research confirmed an astonishingly consistent statistic about serial killers: 100 percent had been abused as children, either with violence, neglect, or humiliation... The Kaczynski’s raised two boys, both of whom dropped out of society as adults and lived anti-social, isolated lives. One of them lived for a time in a ditch he dug in the ground—and that was the sane one, David
• because my childhood became all about prediction, I learned to live in the future. I didn’t feel things in the present because I wanted to be a moving target, gone to the future before any blow could really be felt. This ability to live in tomorrow or next year immunized me against the pain and hopelessness of the worst moments, but it also made me reckless about my own safety.
• There is a story about playwright David Mamet, a pure genius of human behavior: When told about the complaints of two famous cast members in one of his plays, he joked: “If they didn’t want to be stars, they shouldn’t have had those awful childhoods.”
• “forced teaming.” It was shown through his use of the word “we” (“We’ve got a hungry cat up there”). Forced teaming is an effective way to establish premature trust because a we’re-in-the-same-boat attitude is hard to rebuff without feeling rude.
• Charm is almost always a directed instrument, which, like rapport-building, has motive. To charm is to compel, to control by allure or attraction. Think of charm as a verb, not a trait.
• We must learn and then teach our children that niceness does not equal goodness. Niceness is a decision, a strategy of social interaction; it is not a character trait.
• Just as rapport-building has a good reputation, explicitness applied by women in this culture has a terrible reputation.
• This same transition can occur as a conversation becomes… a robbery. Every type of con relies upon distracting us from the obvious. <> Kelly had so many details thrown at her that she lost sight of this simple context: the man was an absolute stranger.
• a woman can keep herself focused on context simply by thinking, “I have asked him to leave twice.” The defense for too many details is simple: bring the context into conscious thought.
• The unsolicited promise is one of the most reliable signals because it is nearly always of questionable motive.
• “No” is a word that must never be negotiated, because the person who chooses not to hear it is trying to control you.
• It is better to turn completely, take in everything, and look squarely at someone who concerns you. This not only gives you information, but it communicates to him that you are not a tentative, frightened victim-in-waiting. You are an animal of nature, fully endowed with hearing, sight, intellect, and dangerous defenses. You are not easy prey, so don’t act like you are.
• So, though a mayor is more likely to be killed as a result of holding the office, I am sorry to tell my mayor-readers that we care more about avoiding that outcome for governors.
• Ingmar Bergman said, “Imagine I throw a spear into the dark. That is my intuition. Then I have to send an expedition into the jungle to find the spear. That is my intellect.” <> Simply by throwing the spear, we greatly improve conscious predictions.
• Everywhere in the world, the chin jutted forward is a sign of aggression, the head slightly retracted is a sign of fear, the nostrils flared while taking a sharp breath is a sign of anger. If a person anywhere on the planet holds his arms forward with the palms facing down while making small downward movements, he means “Calm down.”
• Sometimes people feel their anger is justified by past unfairnesses, and with the slightest excuse, they bring forth resentments unrelated to the present situation. You could say such a person has pre-justified hostility, more commonly known as having a chip on his shoulder.
• Unless it is relevant and accurate, knowledge can be the sinking ship the fool insists is sea-worthy, because knowledge often masquerades as wisdom.
• As I said, context is much more important to predictions than content, and this truth relates to safety in some significant ways. For example, as I write this I am in Fiji, where from time to time a person is killed by something most of us don’t consider dangerous: a coconut.
• We need not walk defiantly through the territory of a violent gang, or wear our Rolex on a trip to Rio or stay in a violent relationship. Context can be a useful predictor of hazard all by itself.
• When we are stunned or distracted we raise the very drawbridge—perception—that we must cross in order to make successful predictions.
• I suggest that clients compel the extortionist to commit to his sleaziness, which puts him on the defensive. Don’t let him simply flirt with his lowness—make him marry it by saying those ugly words.
• If he were reasonable, he wouldn’t have pursued this behavior in the first place. There is no straight talk for crooked people.”
• the wisdom of Oliver Wendell Holmes: “The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.”
• I believe it is critical for a woman to view staying as a choice, for only then can leaving be viewed as a choice and an option.
• another said, “I can’t imagine that a father would kill his own children.” As you know, if you cannot imagine it, you cannot predict it.
• The bottom line is that there is really only one good reason to get a restraining order in a case of wife abuse: the woman believes the man will honor it and leave her alone.
• (To remind clients that my job is to help them be safer, I have a small sign on my desk that reads, Do not come here for justice.)
• Also left behind is the notion that a woman should be heard, the notion that no means no, and the notion that a woman has a right to decide who will be in her life. <> My generation saw in The Graduate that there is one romantic strategy to use above all others: persistence... persistence only proves persistence—it does not prove love.
• It isn’t news that men and women often speak different languages, but when the stakes are the highest, it’s important to remember that men are nice when they pursue, and women are nice when they reject. Naturally this leads to confusion,
• Being in control is an alternative to being loved, and since his identity is so precariously dependent on a relationship, he carefully shores up every possible leak.
• Twenty-six years later, an actor became president, and a media addict (John Hinckley) shot him, claiming an obsession with a film actress (Jodie Foster). After a long courtship, the marriage between violence and entertainment was consummated.
• Kemper was correct. Against his terrific size advantage and experience at killing, Ressler didn’t stand a chance. Kemper, who had endured a long abstinence from his compulsive habit of murder, now had a live one: a famous FBI agent... There followed a thirty-minute contest of fear and courage, with Ressler using his impressive behavioral insight to keep Kemper off balance.
• Of course, (Bardo) was now famous himself, a fact that carried him to an almost too ironic comment on public life: “All the fame that I have achieved from this results in me getting death threats and harassment. The media says things about me that aren’t even true. I have no control over them invading my privacy, bringing up my case over and over again on TV so they can make money off it. They portray me in ways I never saw myself.”
• It is a convoluted irony of the media age that Marcia Clark prosecuted a regular citizen who stalked and killed a famous person, then prosecuted a famous person (O.J. Simpson) who stalked and killed a regular citizen, then became famous herself, and is now the focus of a stalker.
• The man was wearing a crown on his head made of twigs and leaves. Pounced on from all sides, he yelled out, “I’m the king, I’m the King!” as he was handcuffed. It wasn’t Perry, but still another mentally ill pursuer.
• when we assume the imagined outcome is a sure thing, we are in conflict with what Proust called an inexorable law: “Only that which is absent can be imagined.” In other words, what you imagine—just like what you fear—is not happening.
• Because this type of imaginative linking builds a scenario one step at a time, it feels like logic, but it is just an impersonation of logic. It is also one of our dumbest creative exercises.
• “Maybe this discouraging evening will compel me to develop a new computerized phone-in system through which moviegoers can choose the film they want to see, learn where it’s playing, and actually purchase the tickets in advance.” <> But that’s exactly what Andrew Jarecki did, founding MovieFone, (which you may know as 777-FILM)
• Mark Twain wisely said, “I have had a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”