fear

fear

ˈfir/

noun

1. 1.
   an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.
2. verb

1. 1.
   be afraid of (someone or something) as likely to be dangerous, painful, or threatening.

By this definition, I am afraid of everything, or nearly everything. It may be easier to describe what I am not afraid of: I’d say ice cream, but like whiskey and beer, I like ice cream an awful lot, enough so that not eating it is sometimes more difficult than eating it - a lot like drinking beer and whiskey. Flowers? yes I’m very much not afraid of flowers, though that hasn’t always been the case. I remember being in a field with a pretty young woman who also liked flowers, but she got a bee in her hair and became a screaming frightened human being so much so the memory is still vivid in my mind 45 years later. If I remember correctly, she was so frightened that she frightened me. How can I discuss fear without generating anxiety and greater fear? It may require a great deal of creativity, perhaps even courage. An essay I recently wrote but did not publish was about alcohol; I am afraid of alcohol, or more correctly I am afraid of the effect which alcohol has on me. Not in the sense of becoming someone other than myself, but more the contempt I see in the faces of others when I’m “in my cups” - I am afraid of contempt whether I am drunk or not. Franklin Delano Roosevelt said “we have nothing to fear, but fear itself,” so like the brave heart I yearn to become I drink to face my fears - a fatuous argument to be sure, if for no other reason than any contempt one sees in others is most likely projection - the same for most emotions found on the faces of others be they love, anger or hate; Mahatma Gandhi - “The enemy is fear. We think it is hate, but it fear.”

I choose to write about fear because it has become a “hot button” issue used to sell weapons, war, cars, computers, etc. Nearly every hook the shills of our consumer culture use to separate you from your hard-earned resources has its roots in some spoken or unspoken threat - “buy this to protect yourself from _______”; “if you don’t buy this _______ .  .  .”. While the veiled threat found in most advertising likely divulges more of the precarious conditions under which the professional “hawkers” function, it comes nowhere near explaining the extent to which fear permeates our world or how to find more constructive palliatives than altered states, lethal instincts or religious indoctrination. As a child my mind balked at the incomprehensible dimensions of the universe, or more expressly the limits of time - lifetime. So I began to construct edifices behind which the ignorance of my ego could cower - parents, family, school, television. I clung to anything which appeared as light against my own feelings of doubt - looking outward to assuage the darkness inside. Psychiatry - boon or boondoggle helped me to reorient the light back into self for answers to doubt. However grounding self-knowledge is, perspective is no balm to the pernicious solitude of fear, nor does the illusion of mental health answer why or of what to be afraid: parents, death, love, success, evil .  .  . fear?

Am I less afraid by writing this down? Logic says information is power, yet I voluntarily expose myself to you the reader - an unknown (or myself the writer depending on one’s road). Will disclosing my vulnerability to you make me more secure or exculpate any sins of existence? stay tuned .  . Were I guided by the “venal chart” of Leonard Cohen’s cautionary “Villanelle for Our Time”, my remark “stay tuned” could easily be a pointed prompt for anyone anxious to realize the power of confession - Catholics and Alcoholics - or those wanting to exculpate sins - drunks, capitalists and other guilty parties amongst us. Am I menacing you, if so to what end? Is it possible that like myself, I do not want you to be afraid - that rather than soothing my own doubt, if I were able to help you, if not be less afraid, then at least be more aware of possible thorns so much a part of the rose-colored glasses of our culture’s media saturation? Anyone who has ever been gored by a thorn of any kind will likely not be so thoroughly gored a second time; is that caution due to fear, or wisdom? Is it possible to learn one’s way out from under fear? If I close myself off from the reality of being gored by thorns, do I lose the ineffable wonder of roses? Are the words of this essay no more than a different edifice behind which the ignorance of my ego retreats? That you have read this far says you understand something of fear, enough to grapple with someone else’s fear. You are braver than I. The easy access to hate which fear spawns is to me repulsive - a threat I struggle to attenuate by gaining a better understanding of fear. However, I often feel as though I am treading water in a sea of hate, so like the thorn and not wishing to gored, I shrink from other’s fear and hope somehow essaying about fear helps us all learn to swim. This disclosure does very little to lessen my fear, so why share?

I really like to drink beer, whiskey and lemon, almost as much as wandering in the garden of sex, though nothing compares to the release found in another’s eyes who has been seen while sharing flesh. Does that make being seeing important or help us to fear less? Does the answer lie in  finding more feelings like alcohol, ice cream and being seen in this world; are these the keys to that doorway out of a world full or fear? While this existential bandaid does not explain the vastness of what can never be explained intellectually, it certainly serves to make for a more pleasurable journey, far more than murdering others with the latest lethal accoutrement or shifting yet another pile of accumulated wealth from one location to another, but what do I know, “mais ce que je sais” - Michel de Montaigne. Mark Twain has said “Against laughter, nothing can stand.” If I had a choice, which I do near as I can tell - I would much prefer laughter; drinking beer and whiskey; eating ice cream and loving sex, than sinking into a miasma of terror - be that of my own or other’s making. Is frolic enough, or simply the vehicle which we might choose to convey ourselves through that “valley in the shadow of death? Does all of our ceaseless existential fear stem from the intractable reality of cessation of awareness in this vale of tears? After this much human development, could we not have found a more clear and effective response to fear than that of creating more - fear? As much as I like drinking beer and whiskey; eating ice cream and pussy - I fear there is more to life .  . .

“The great spiritual geniuses, whether it was Moses, Buddha, Plato, Socrates, Jesus or Emerson have taught man to look within himself to find God.” - Ernest Holmes. Are we just dancing around about naming death for what it is: the “great spirit”, “g_d”, “yahwah”, “mohammad”, “jesus”, “barong”, “brahma” etc. What if our inevitable end has always been just that - a returning to our origins - and our fear is merely about the continuity or lack thereof of that thread? Common frames of reference suggest 1) we are comprised of stardust, 2) matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Would not the same behavior be expected from consciousness; is our panic to attribute characteristics of existence beyond that which is readily recognizable e.g., ice cream and flowers that much different than searching for alternatives to the excoriating pernicious damage done by fear. Small wonder we have saddled ourselves with gods who, while satisfying our fear of change, have never returned to confirm the truth of that much sought after eternal constancy. So it is with most, if not all, of our strategies for fighting fear - altered states may shed light on our evanescence, though not explain our impermanence; just as succumbing to fear through hate quells the aching pain of existential terror, but leaves us more hateful - the ultimate hangover. I find greater comfort considering the pleasures of whiskey and sex than cowering to some state of socialization wherein I am unconscious and numb to my anxiety, but clean, sober and sanctimonious. Do I defile all that is holy in me by saying this? Do I subordinate myself to baser instincts by this surrender, rather than struggling for that “higher plane of existence” Lao Tzu advocates, or is it possible that the happiness the Dalai Lama advocates is the only tonic to fear we can know, and that by any means possible is simply heeding the logic of Master Shakespeare’s “all's fair in love and war,” on this mortal plane?