Musings on Fear

With all of the unrest these days I will admit, I have been anxious. It is an insidious stress that has me creeping through my days plagued by borderline depression. It makes it hard to be creative, hard to get motivated to do the chores I can with a broken hand.

I have too much time to think.

Not the dreamy thinking I do when I plug my headphones in my ears and drift along waiting for an interesting idea or a scene. I’ve tried doing that as a distraction. What I’ve accomplished so far is a record time for an online 300 piece with rotation puzzle on Jigsaw Planet.

What exactly is this malaise? It is a deep, abiding fear.

Fear for our country. Fear for my future. Fear and insecurity about what I am doing with my life.

But there is so much more I do not fear.

I do not fear protesters. I don’t even fear rioters, though to be honest, I’ve never been in a riot.

I do not fear the police. But I am sufficiently melanin deficient to not pose an immediate threat.

I am fortunate. I have privilege. I am white.

I fear this nation’s obsession with having guns, bigger guns, more guns. Why? So your 17 year old son can go shoot people who don’t agree with your ideology? His life is ruined. His mother let him go across state lines with a weapon of war, which is beyond illegal in the first place. What did anyone expect?

I do not fear I will go hungry. That I will lose my home. That I will have access to clean and drinkable water.

What I DO fear is white men. I fear being sexually abused or raped by them because they feel powerless. I fear white men with guns.

I fear the racist crap that is so prevalent in our society today. This is not culture, this is insanity. To think your skin color has anything to do with your value as a human being is the height of absurdity.

I fear our President. (Another white guy. No gun, but clearly mentally unstable with access to nuclear weapons.) I fear that he takes council from Vladimir Putin over US security and intelligence experts. I fear that he makes frequent calls to a not-so-former KGB operative for advice, ignoring the fact that his buddy Putin offered a bounty for killing US soldiers.

I fear our democracy is over. That because of the paragraph above, we are headed toward an autocratic regime made up of Trump and his corrupt cronies.

I fear those who blindly follow a mad man.

Yes, I fear I am experiencing something very like the political climate of pre-WWII Germany.

I am doing what I can to combat these fears both within my psyche and externally by becoming politically aware and active.

So I focus on the fears I can control.

I fear that my books will never be published or read. I fear that no one will like them. I fear ridicule. I fear cancer and death.

What I do not fear is living.

Because while I am buried beneath these fears, while I let them whittle away at my time an attention, they are keeping me from living.

I’ve written my fears, offered them to the fire, and though they are still there, lurking and real, I will focus on the one thing–in a world full of chaos–that I can control. My own self. I will remain true to my beliefs that we are all part of something bigger–the human race. That basic decency is worthwhile and real no matter what God or Goddess or Nature or Universe you choose to worship or not. That treating others the way you wish to be treated is never wrong.

I need to accept that this is a turbulent time, so rather than fighting the tide and cursing it, I will ride it out. I will explore. I will think,. I will channel my fears into my writing. I will be.

And I will follow the best advice I have ever been given. Keep breathing. When all else fails, that is the first step. (And the secret to a long life.) Keep breathing. The rest is transitory .