I have my fears

But they do not have me

I would encourage anyone to read the words to this song as it delves into the subject of fear and the notion of overcoming it. I would not pretend to have reached this point myself, but I must say I am closer to it than I was "half of my life" time ago. Thanks to my ex-girlfriend for her last crude projecting comments of cowardice in my last post. If it is not her, it is certainly her spirit and her writing style, and her denial that is her in fact tells me nothing. Nothing like using terms like "pussy" and "vagina" to get a point across - I mean - what greater insult than to accuse a man of being a woman - our prejudiced notion of an apparent frightened woman stereotype that our primitive culture has bought into. Try delivering a baby and let's see who the braver sex is. The fact that my ex is indeed - a woman - at least technically speaking - just indicates her own self-loathing even further. I don't want to knock her too much - I mean I did spend a year of my life with her, thankfully no more than that, but as I chose her, she must be a part of me - especially since she has continued to stick around in my life like a bad case of dandruff - even if she is thousands of miles away. Some day that will change - and maybe that some day has arrived finally. I put up with a lot, but at some point even I have a breaking point, as my last boss found out. I will thank her for taking the time to read my "entries" and one of these days I may get around to reading her stuff as well - I just never seem to get around to it..

But enough about that. I believe the author of the post was describing herself more than me, and if you ever want to find out about someone's personality, just see what aspects of their personality they project onto someone else. Let's start with the word "pussy" - obviously a twisted notion of a cat, crudely used to describe a woman's sex organs, and at the absolute lowest sense of the word, a real insult to send the dagger through the heart of someone. They are fighting words for some, although I am not much of a fighter. Nobody is going to accuse me of being Rambo or John Wayne, although I really have had no need to fight except for one time years ago in 7th grade. We live in a world of fear, documented by Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine, but how many of us actually get mugged, beat up by thugs, or assaulted? Never has happened to me yet. I am sure a self defense class wouldn't hurt, but never a priority. If you look for fights you find them. I don't own a gun. Let God/dess protect me and if it is my time for my ass to be kicked, "Bring em on" as our brilliant leader says.

Pussy implies cowardice. So what is a coward anyway? Is the anti-thesis a person who has no fear? Well - that is not really fair - if you have no fear to begin with, than it is not that hard to do something that inspires fear for others. The ladder you see above - placed upon a building over 20 feet high - many construction workers would see that, jump right up on it without a second thought - and be up at the top of the building in 10 seconds flat. As for myself, overcoming my fears, stepping one step at a time upon a swaying ladder that seemed to go on forever - and slid slightly at the top edge - took a great deal of courage on my own part as someone who has had to overcome a terror of heights out of necessity. So - what about someone who is born into this world - such as myself - with a lot of fear. Are you a coward based on something you are born with or not born with? There is a lot of fear in my family - all of us inherited it - both genetically and then re-inforced in the way we were raised. And this applies in turn to those that raised the ones that raised us. There is a contrast to some degree - in that my father could walk through bad neighborhoods without a second thought, while my mother was terrified of parking her car in broad daylight at an outdoor mall in Palos Verdes. As I spent the majority of time with the present parent in my life as my mother, which one rubbed off on me? Take a guess. I grew up consumed in fear - fear of failure, fear of asking out a woman, fear of not being able to succeed, fear of just about everything. When the sum of my fears came crashing down upon me, I was afraid of being alive and facing a world that I did not think I could survive in. I was more afraid of living than dying. I did not have much confidence, a common theme in my family.

20 years later - a lot has changed. It is not that my fears have gone away - when I have my anxiety attacks that are less frequent lately, but not gone by any stretch - I am reminded that my fear will always be a part of who I am. Yet I do believe that I have overcome a lot of them. I can't tell you exactly how I have done it, but I know one thing - at some point you have to face them head on and just immerse yourself in them. I had the choice of either doing that, or living my life helplessly dependent on others to take care of me. I credit the faith I developed in a higher power and ultimately in myself for overcoming some of them. And I also have to credit something else - illegal drugs. I think they saved me.

I am not big on crystal meth, heroine, alcohol, or recreational drugs. Psychedelics can be used for recreation - and in some ways that is their draw - but at the most intense expression of them, they turn your world upside down, send you into a terrified state of exposure to your deepest fears, demons, and internal monsters. This happened on more than one occasion for me - during my mushroom and LSD experiences, but the one that will always stand out for me as a turning point of sorts was my Irvine Meadows experience. It was when the pre-historic creatures started swimming around in the out-house that I realized I was starting to lose touch with the world I was familiar with as "reality" and running into a wall of complete orange suggested my senses were disconnected too. Despite the unfortunate consequences of the police involvement and my parents losing a night of sleep, I really see this as the emotional boot camp event in my life that made me believe in myself again. I knew that if I could get through this death state, a state where I had gone onto the next alien existence state and had my world as I know it shattered for what appeared to me to be a permanent forever notion, I knew I could do such intimidating things as going on a job interview.

And when it was time for my first interview, I was a stuttering nervous wreck. It took a few of them to slowly overcome that lack of confidence, and I did get better as I went on. Every first experience of any kind, from the first time I tried (unsuccessfully I might add) to make love, the first interview, first time on the job at JC Penney, and then again at my last employer of 18 years - I always faced a wall of terror that I had to get past. It was never easy, but the more I was able to get through it, succeed in the wake of all my fears and insecurities, the more I could re-program myself to believe that I in fact could do something. When everything inside me had always told me I could not do it, and it was that notion of not believing in myself that scared me so much to begin with, I found out to my surprise that I could do it. Real life experience showed that my life time programming was wrong, I could survive in the face of the failure I believed myself to be. I slowly started to see that who I thought I was, who I had been raised to believe I was, was in fact quite different from what I could be in reality.

Getting back to that ladder - symbolically and literally - the climb freaked me out beyond belief the first time I had to get on a roof. I was shaking, I was terrified, I just wanted to get back down. Than the more I got up on one story homes, the more comfortable I was, but two story ladders freaked me out. I had sweaty palms and was shaking when I had to go up one in Incline Village. I had to do a two story ladder 6 times in one hour at an apartment complex in Carson. Again, the more I did it, the more I realized I could and the more I saw that my fears did not have to consume me. And don't think the ladder you see in the picture didn't scare the hell out of me - it did - but one shaking step at a time, I did it, and I am still here to tell about it.

How does the notion of driving 50 miles into the dark night to meet a described psychotic and paranoid truck driver sound to you? I had to do it. When I met him, his eyes were popping out of his head. It was my own fears that I had gone through that made me feel empathy for him, rather than fearing him - and I got him to calm down as I did my task I was appointed to do - and I got through it. Would the person who wrote the last comment fared as well in my shoes - I highly doubt it.

So although I don't engage in psychedelic experiences any more, some times the voices of doom and fear consume as they did during my sleepless night before my wife left town. I had very strong thoughts in my head - as I did 20 years ago - that my life was too much for me, that I did not have what it took to face it and succeed - that my new job was going to blow up in my face, that I was going to fail and let my family down. When those dark thoughts consume your head, they are very real and very persuasive. But once I get to the next day, I again realize I have survived my own darkness and I get a re-gained sense of confidence. After that night, I was able to drive her to the airport, do my best to be a single Dad facing a new job without a computer. Having immersed myself in the fear and then come through, I had a new sense of confidence - and I took charge - talked Victoria into staying with her original flight, and I had no problems during the time she was gone, despite being the apparent babbling psychotic maniac the night she was leaving - just to get on her good side anyways.

So when I hear about medication - I am divided. I don't believe in needless suffering, and some times anxiety serves no purpose at all except to provide complete discomfort. But other times, re-uniting with the fear at an intense level, can be inspirational and confidence inspiring. I don't always want to avoid an experience like that. I did not choose my Irvine meltdown, it chose me - but I will always be thankful for the experience, as hellish as it was. It may not be for everyone - but for me - it helped me - some of you cannot understand that - but trust me - it did. Despite my fears and doubts, I have been able to succeed in a competitive field where burn out and exhaustion are common. I have been able to take care of my family. I am not Mr. Adventure - as the post points out - and I do not have a desire to travel the world as some do. I would do that for my wife's sake if she wanted to. I would even subject myself to the Cruise to Hell if that would be what she wanted and if she was there too. I might not do it enthusiastically, and I might take every prescription drug available first - and then shout out for doses while on board - but if it would please my wife, I would do it for her - because that is as much of a "pussy" I am. I am really doomed now - if I go I am caving in and I am a pussy, if I don't I am too much of a pussy to face it. Well - if that is the way it is - what the hell - bring it on.

Text in full - courtesy of Peter Gabriel:

Darkness

i’m scared of swimming in the sea

dark shapes moving under me

every fear i swallow makes me small

inconsequential things occur

alarms are triggered memories stir

it’s not the way it has to be

i’m afraid of what i do not know

i hate being undermined

i’m afraid i can be devil man and

i’m scared to be divine

don’t mess with me my fuse is short

beneath this skin these fragments caught

when i allow it to be there’s no control over me

i have my fears but they do not have me

walking through the undergrowth, to the house in the woods the deeper I go, the darker it gets

i peer through the window knock at the door

and the monster i was so afraid of

lies curled up on the floor is curled up on the floor just like a baby boy

i cry until i laugh

i’m afraid of being mothered with my balls shut in the pen

i’m afraid of loving women and i’m scared of loving men

flashbacks coming in every night don’t tell me everything’s alright

when I allow it to be it has no control over me i own my fear

so it doesn’t own me

walking through the undergrowth, to the house in the woods

\the deeper i go, the darker it gets i peer through the window

knock at the door and the monster i was

so afraid of lies curled up on the floor is curled up on the floor just like a baby boy

i cry until i laugh