Fear.

"Can it be that all our choices are dominated by fear?"

Pieter has been engaged in a conversation around choice and imagination.  As stated in my last post, his blog is a blow to my reasoning as if struck by a splash of cold water in the face.

And this latest post takes us into questioning fear and held this gem:

"Perhaps that is why failure is considered as something negative, when in fact it's just an unpredicted result."

Ever hear the term "fear of failure?"  I envy you if you haven't.

And while I don't want to paraphrase his thinking, I do want to open it up to as wide an audience as possible because fear is such a simple but capable foe.

So I want to tell you a story.  About me.

I want to travel across old Persia and document my travels using film, animation, writing and whatever comes to hand.  I have  wanted to do this for a very long time.  We're talking decades here.  And yet I  have consistently turned away from all the artistic fields in my life.  From anything that might give me the tools to make this happen a little easier. 

"You had to make ends meet," you might say.  But, no, it was much more than that.  I'm not talking about just educational or career choices here.  There was actually a time when I couldn't go and see a movie.  Or walk past a movie set on the street that was in production.  "It's too painful," I would say to myself and to others. 

And they would look at me as if I was insane, or crazy.  But I think they also understood because they too  had an area of their life that was better left undisturbed, or so we like to tell ourselves.  Or at least, I did.

So I would walk that block or two out of my way or stay home alone playing video games when all my friends went out to see a show.  And somehow this made sense to me.

Hopefully the above note card made you laugh.  If you are not a reader of Jessica Hagy, I recommend you become one.

Laughter is such an important tool.  It can free us from the "expected" by taking us kindly but violently into the unknown.  But Jessica's image does more than free me with laughter, it also highlights this link between fear and expectation (ie: failure).  It speaks of this point at which something becomes big, recognized, all-consuming. 

How many of us stop or never start something because we're afraid we can't (or can) reach this "critical mass"?

Gavin speaks of fear as it relates to our idea or our writings and allowing for interpretation.  And I think this is very much about expectation and directly tied into the threads woven above.  And something I deal with CONSTANTLY as I don't consider myself a writer, per se, but always find myself writing something.  Karmic.

I'd like to end by quoting the wonderful Lewis Green.  I hope he won't mind as this was sent to me via email.  But I couldn't come close to saying this better than he.

"But complacency. The ability to do nothing. At that point, we surrender to the fear. We lose the battle. We lose our dignity. And we surrender our will and our right to battle fear. The creator of fear depends on that complacency to conquer us."

What say you?