It’s been two years, almost to the day. WOW. To kick-off my reboot, here are some thoughts on fear:
It is only recently that I have identified the source of so many of my personal obstacles: fear. It had been skulking around the corners of my subconscious a long time, like a roach; but then I turned the lights on and left no cabinet corner for it to scurry under. I was always aware of fear when it came to my friendships and relationships, but I hadn’t realized that it had tainted so much of the rest of my life as well. I recently tackled it head on in the personal field, and that is the main factor in how I realized the degree to which fear was affecting my overall approach to life. So now that I knew how present it was, my next question became: how do I defeat it everywhere else?
There are of course healthy fears; fears that keep us alive, fears that keep us from doing stupid things. In my experience they tend to be more identifiable, and seem like common sense more than Fear. They vary for everyone. The first really problematic fear I knowingly encountered was in the arts. I became aware of it in my acting work; holding back from making bold choices for fear of judgement and not being “good enough”. This was brought to my attention by teachers, and by watching my peers overcome this obstacle, I managed to do so as well (for the most part). Then, slowly, I realized that this was also present in my visual arts, my writing, as well as my social interactions.
One of my favorite books, Dune, talks about fear:
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
I reread it at the start of this summer, and it was only this time that I really paid attention to that passage. I noticed that it describes fear as something both outside and apart of man, that can be overcome, not, as I had been living, as an inescapable part of one’s own psychology, but as a force to be overcome through strength of will. It is likely impossible to live without feeling fear from time to time; “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear” wrote horror/sci-fi genius H.P. Lovecraft. It has kept us alive. But how we deal with fear is another matter. Fight or flight. So by thinking of fear in the Dune way, as an opponent, I better came to understand how it affects me, and thus, how to act in spite of it.
Over the summer, I began noting every time I felt like I was holding back in some way. And in doing that, I started to notice recurring circumstances where I was acting under the coercion of fear but didn’t know it. And as soon as I began to simply put a name on this phantom feeling, it became easier to feel brave and confident. It was about chopping it down to size. When I simply felt anxious, unable to move forward, and paralyzed in life but did not know why, it was easy to let my fear become this huge horrible monster, waiting to devour me whole and rendering me impotent.
The fear wasn’t always the same; specific to different scenarios. But in specifying what the source of the fear was, I became able to defeat it. It came down to taking the mystery out of it. Making it something I could fight, rather than a feeling to be slave to. I would, and do, still feel it, but now that I can say my particular action is a result of fear, I can choose to do the opposite; make the bolder choice. In The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharpe talks about fear and creativity. Her method is to specifically name each fear, and in doing that, find an explanation to dispel whatever that notion is.
I think perhaps why it took me so long to acknowledge being afraid is that it is wildly unpopular. No one likes admitting weaknesses, and fear somehow became an incredibly stigma-laced feeling. Why? My current theory is that we often confuse cowardice with fear. Cowards portrayed in film (or the public arena in any form) rarely elicit our pity so much as our disgust. We all watch war films and say “Well, I would be the one charging gate, not that asshole who’s shitting himself in his foxhole, rendered paralyzed by mere fear,” when the truth is, most of us are that asshole. And because deep down we know that, we don’t want to associate ourselves with fear at all, even in admitting silly phobias.
What we need to realize is that fear is not something to be ashamed of, any more than you should be ashamed of feeling aroused(although many religious types would argue that you should, but that’s a different story). It’s okay to acknowledge that you’re attracted to your friend’s partner, it’s wrong to try and sleep with them behind your friend’s back. Because you cannot control your stimuli, all you can do is react. And it is the reaction you have control over. Feeling fear isn’t cowardice, it’s letting your fear keep you from acting in a given situation. And even then, it might not be cowardice, it might be sensible.
It’s actually amusingly circular. We don’t want to admit that we might be afraid of something, for fear that we will be judged for that feeling or taken advantage of, when in fact the only way to act in spite of that fear is to admit that it’s there in the first place (not publicly, but to ourselves). So, as overused as that quote is, the only thing to fear is…well, you know.
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