Fear - my take on the phenomenon

Being afraid is something very personal and individual. What may paralyze one person might seem like nothing to you, so some of the things I’ll discuss in this article might seem irrational to you, but for me, they can be the cause of some really dark moments. My recent  articles have been leaning towards the neutral and more negative aspects of life, but the next one will be enjoying a sunnier disposition, that is a promise from me to you.

Fear is a reaction to a perceived threat, be it physical or mental. It’s survival at its basest form and you react to it via a fight or flight response, meaning you either confront that fear or you run from it. Do not confuse fear with anxiety, as anxiety can work as a catalyst of sorts; you are anxious about a certain challenge, so you either grow to fear it or you conquer that fear. A simple explanation would be, that it’s a coping mechanism designed to test your resolve. Fear is part of human nature, and scientists speculate, that the humans who learned to fear certain situations were the ones to survive and carry their genes on to us. So a part of your fear is primal, such as fearing certain predators and situations, but the more dominant ones are learned through experience. Have a spider crawl across you face as an infant, and you may develop a fear of said creature. Have a near death experience involving water and you might not like water anymore.

Or maybe you just kick the hell out of fear?

Having explained a little about the nature of the phenomenon means I can dive into the heart of this article. My fears. Keep in mind, that fears aren’t constant, not in most cases anyway. A constant fear would drive you mad and ultimately destroy you. My fears fluctuate, and sometimes they feel like old friends stopping by to remember me where I come from and what makes me tick as a person. I’ve decided to be a bit lyrical about it, so bear with me, as it’s a subject, that you don’t often get to talk about in earnest. And being less than that would be a disservice to all of you, and myself as well.

Success

Sometimes I’m afraid, that I care too little

Sometimes my efforts can be lackluster and brittle

Sometimes I think I might not succeed

Sometimes that makes me not want to proceed

Are low expectations my way to cope?

Should I allow myself to dream and hope?

What if my dreams are torn asunder?

Could I ever recover from such a blunder?

Sometimes I think it’s best to fail

Because no one will get to hear your wail

Fearing failure is quite common I think. But I fear success as well. Because success equals expectations and inevitably some bigger responsibilities in life, which might not suit me, you cannot know until you’ve given it your all. Sometimes I get really anxious about the prospect of teaching. So much can go wrong in a classroom, especially if the children can sense your insecurity. But it’s more than that. To be a professional means to have an absolute confidence in your abilities and I do not have that, not all the time at least. This feeling might change as the years progress, but that would not make for interesting reading material would it? Suffice to say, that my confidence is not as high as I feel it should be. So I do not fear failure that much, because nothing will change by failing, you just get stuck in an endless loop of disappointments, and somehow there’s comfort in that. A sad pitiful existence is still an existence one might argue. But for how long I wonder?

Yep, todays article is dark

Love

How can I function as a man

With no one to hold my hand?

When is it my turn to shine?

Exchanging my heart with thine

Courage is the real enemy here

Without it, I am paralyzed with fear

Can anyone ever be fine

With seeing the end of their line?

Will I ever get the chance

To experience true romance?

Wanting love and having love are obviously two quite different things. Wanting it, is a drive that dominates most people’s lives. You never stop searching for that special someone, just as you never stop asking yourself: “Is this as good as it gets?”. The quest for love is marred by its success I think. But these are just guesses, as they are based on observation and not experience. I’m not afraid of women, on the contrary actually, I really love having them in my life. Many of the women I see socially are fantastic creatures, and I will never grow tired of their company. We flirt a lot as well, which is normal I guess. My fear comes, when it’s about to go from flirtation to relation. Not the physical intimacy (boobs are awesome), but the implied responsibilities that comes with a relationship, and the thought of not being “free” anymore. Will I have to change who I am to savor love? You might stipulate, that I over think this, and that love just happens and all that, but if I could control my fears, then I would be on top of the world wouldn’t I?

See, when I try to chat a woman up, it pretty much goes smoothly until I perceive that she also has an interest in me.  Then doubt sets in, followed by fear and it usually results in a mental impotence of sorts. It’s frustrating, because I am nearing thirty, and I am feeling the urge to pass on my legacy, which is hard to do in a tissue paper. Two of my younger siblings have kids already, and when that realization hit me, I panicked a little. It would not be as severe, if I had a woman in my life, but at the moment I am swinging blindly. Women always ask me who I have feelings for at the moment, and instead of answering them, I usually just ignore the question, as the answer depresses me. There aren’t any. That scares the hell out of me, as the prospect of being alone, is even scarier than the thought of baring your inner self to someone. Nobody wants to grow old on their own.

Zombies? This here is the real living dead.

Numb

On a hot summer day

My emotions went away

I never wondered why

They always made me cry

But I see why they were great

When it’s impossible to relate

So now I have a cadre of masks

Suitable for all life’s tasks

So when you see me smile

You see a man in denial

I exaggerate a little in the poem, but I have been feeling a growing sense of dread lately. It’s a disturbing sense of isolation, as I no longer feel I can relate to people in my life. Sure, we laugh and have fun together, but it’s accompanied by emptiness, which is very hard to describe. I like to describe myself as an empathic person, but I fear it’s becoming less true as time goes by. I gradually stop caring it seems. The problem is, that in order to be happy, I need to hunt down the objects I desire, but if I can’t relate or find pleasure in most things anymore, then that quest becomes increasingly difficult. It sounds a little like a mid life crisis, but does that mean I’ll only live to be sixty?

 I wrote about a certain tendency in a previous article, that when people bore me, then I start daydreaming or ignore them without their knowledge. This has become even more frequent as of late, and it’s put me in a constant state of worry. Which is reinforcing my other fears and anxieties; it’s all a vicious circle I can’t seem to escape, unless something drastic happens. My own attempt at combating this emotional state has been through a diet, which is going well (more on that in a future article), as I speculated if I felt better about my physical appearance, then my mental health would improve as well. It’s a solid theory I think, and I’m very excited to see what will happen. You might wonder what the actual fear is in this section, but I honestly cannot tell you, except, that it feels important to include. Which brings us to my final point…

Oh God, what now?

Be cool

I write this blog as part of an experiment. A therapy of sorts, so you are bound to see some very personal things written here, they might even include you. I realize that this article makes me look like a suicidal shell of a man, but take heart dear reader, if you recall what I said earlier, the fears aren’t permanent, they fluctuate and some days are better than others. We are probably much alike I think, because you don’t often sit down and write out your doubts and fears. It can be very therapeutic, but it’s also a window into my life, that I open with some caution. All I ask is that you don’t make a big deal out of it, or feel sad, because pity is one of the worst things that can happen to a person. Thanks for reading my thoughts, it’s always nice to know that we share some of the same issues isn’t it? And if this is all foreign to you, then I envy you!