There are two reasons to fear the walking dead.
First, if they get their way, they will eat you. They will bite you, tear out your entrails, and munch on whatever parts of you they can get in their eager, chomping mouths. That’s probably the primary reason to fear the walking dead. On TV that is.
The second reason to fear the walking dead, and this is the real, unspoken dread of those who still survive, is conversion. If you die, you become one of them. It has happened many times on the TV show “The Walking Dead,” and each time, the reactions of the survivors betray the truth: no fate is more dreadful, more terrible, to them than becoming the walking horrors that infest their world.
If you’re not a fan of the show, like me, the term “walking dead” is as much a metaphor as anything else. And this second reason that characters fear the walking dead is the only real reason any of us have to nurture the same fear. Any of us can fall prey to the kind of mindless, soulless existence that the metaphor implies. It is the fear of living a life without meaning, a life without a sense of purpose, a life without connection to the greater energy and potential of human existence. The walking dead, unfortunately, are legion, and falling into that shuffling monotony is, indeed, a good reason to be afraid.
There are many ways to fall into unconscious existence. Of these, one reason haunts me most: the unconscious life that comes from a commitment in the heart to disconnect. An intellectual commitment is much different from an emotional, spiritual commitment. Intellectual commitments are easy to forget. They are easy to ignore. They fall by the wayside because the mind can be distracted. This is why we are able to rationalize and justify all kinds of behaviors, even those that run contrary to the things we say we believe in and stand for. Emotional commitments, on the other hand, come from some place deeper inside, and they are etched into hardier material. They are not easy to forget because they are not from the place that remembers, at least not superficially. They are not easy to ignore because they are not of a voice outside of the self. They are of a place that has no voice because it needs to voice. They are of a place that is the source of all voice. They cannot fall by the wayside because they are an essential part of the self, of the traveler, thus cannot be shed when extra weight becomes a burden on the journey.
Emotional commitments are made and locked into our hearts. There, they influence and affect our lives in ways we do not always understand or perceive. They are as much conscious and they are unconscious. The most important thing, though, about which we must be aware is that, once made, they are nearly impossible to reverse, at least not without a great deal of conscious, deliberate work. When an emotional commitment is made unconsciously and remains unconscious…this is the most destructive, corrosive form of commitment. I know because I see it often in the workplace. I know because I hear about it often in conversations with friends. I know because I have fallen victim to it myself.
The details of my sad story aren’t important, at least not to this telling. What matters here is the discovery of the commitment. That is where the freedom comes from. However, the path to discovery can be as long and treacherous as any journey undertaken by Pizarro or Columbus. Like any medical diagnosis, we must first start with symptoms. We must recognize them, and that is not always easy. After all, the walking dead do not understand their condition. They do not know what they are or how they came to be that way. When we are living that kind of vacant, automatic life, it is hard to see the state we are in for what it is. All it takes, however, is the smallest nudge to spark a slight recognition, and that spark is enough to start the fire that can shed light on the path out of the darkness. Once we begin to sense the symptoms, then the path to recovery comes into focus. Whether we elect to stay on the path and do the hard work is another matter altogether.
Along every inch of the path, the temptation to just forget, to return to unconsciousness, is always present. It gains strength the closer we get to understanding the source, the illness itself that causes the symptoms. When that illness is uncovered and understood to be a commitment to be disconnected, our options become clear, too. It is at this point, when the commitment made in the heart is remembered and understood, that we have our greatest power. Not only can we recommit to a different outcome, we can also tap into the great energy that is released when old bonds are broken. Like the breaking of nuclear bonds, tremendous energy is released that we can harness and focus to great result. What that result might be…that is the unique, personal commitment that each of us makes to being something other than what we have been in the past when that past commitment has been the limiting factor in our lives. This is the moment of great change. And with change comes transition…
There is, in reality, only one reason to fear the walking dead, and that is becoming one of the hordes yourself. Don’t give up on yourself, though. Unlike the dead in the TV show, any of us can come back from the darkness.
Have you returned from being one of the walking dead? Have you helped someone else out of the darkness? I believe that anyone can make their way back. How about you?
Illuminate Possibilities 