All of us have deep-seated fears, some of which we’re too much of a pansy to confront, others of which they will always linger after years of negatively reinforced blind observations & experiences. Fear was the culprit for my previous dark days of depression and I found it liberating to ask questions and face the tangible ones head-on. We can either hide behind our fears and surround ourselves in certainties and comforts or face them to make us more resilient and able to cope with practically anything that’s thrown at us.
That said, I’ve overcome a lot of fears, but still face a myriad of them and thinking about them is even scary. So admitting that I’m afraid of them and writing them out is a good step to more liberation. So onto my juicy fears:
1) Rejection. We’re all insecure to an extent so this will never temper away completely. Some deal with it by manipulating and using others with tools at their disposal to feel accepted. Beautiful women can get the attention of men. Or you take the safe route and follow fashion trends and earn a lot of money to show off possessions. The general public will accept you, praise your hard work and you’ll feel accepted and less of a reject. It’s the safe route to take toward overall acceptance. However, if you cast an eye and see the machine is fed by this fear mongering and have a semblance of intelligence, you’ll realize how you lie to yourself if you go down this path, gung-ho. I fear rejection by women, social groups, other races, communities etc.
2) Loneliness. I can no longer can tolerate nor settle for company for the sake of keeping me at ease like I did in previous toxic relationships. I feared solitude and facing my demons so much I had to dilute it with someone else's company. You end up dragging out relationships, creating more baggage and superficial friendships. That said, even though I can surround myself with family and friends, I fear long-term loneliness. As Chris Rock says, choose your poison, Married and bored, single and lonely!
3) Meeting the wrong person. A woman’s beauty and peoples’ uncanny abilities to deceive can reveal some nasty cards in the future. My hunch for people has improved, but it’s still a legitimate fear I have. A few bad apples I’ve met this past year have made it creep up.
4) The unconscious grip of power money has on me. My blog renounces the false security money brings, but I still feel the grip it has on me. It makes me greedy.
5) The subpar intelligence of the masses. The lack of self-reflection and uninformed choices people make leads us down the burrow of inevitably bad consequences. We’re fucking ourselves in the way of natural resources, health, finances... Says the guy who works for an oil company. But that’s beside the point. Human beings have lived and evolved for a tiny sliver of Earth’s existence and we’ll inevitably wipe out again with the next ice age or natural disaster... we’re just accelerating this outcome ourselves.
6) I fear smiling at someone and not having it reciprocated.
7) Superficiality and how much power it has to define “culture” and “arts”
8) My long term health.
9) Mind games with women. I’ve had my share of good and bad relationships over the past 15 years from a 4-year long-term relationship to 1 night stands to months of casual relationships where the obvious intent was to use one another to amazing people where the circumstances just didn’t allow it to materialize. At 30 now, I no longer crave sex and intimacy like I used to. A lot of men think with their dicks and will sacrifice their integrity to get a piece of ass and attention, crushing the woman’s self-esteem in the process by using her. (This goes both ways). The whole game of treading carefully to play a balancing act of not appearing too desperate while showing interest is deceptive bullshit. As the one being used, we give up our integrity by lavishing someone with what they want with minimal in return. It’s a game to satisfy our insecurities by playing with another’s emotions. Sure it keeps things exciting in the beginning because our primal instinct to chase things, but why can’t we just be honest and straight forward?
10) Ironically in conjunction with #2 above, long-term commitment.
11) Becoming cynical with age.
12) 2013. My intention to leave my job here next year and travel without health insurance and financial security. It’s all a bit daunting. Unless circumstances change to put me on a path of domestication, it’s still slotted as my top plan. It’ll help me shed fears further.
I No Longer Fear (as much):
1) Aging: I’ve already lost the bulk of my hair but have surpassed 30 in better shape than I was at 20. Shaving it off has been liberating and I give priority to my fitness. Sure some people of the opposite sex won’t give you the time of day because of baldness, your height, weight, race, moles and whatnot. Fuck them and move on because most people of value don’t give two shits. If you can make a girl laugh, you’re already halfway there. Whenever I see people spilling money toward ‘anti-aging’ products, it saddens me.
2) Judgement: Like they say, opinions are like assholes: everyone has one. If you let them shape your edicts without genuinely seeking out personal values yourself, you’re living someone else’s life. Nearly everything we do and say is done in some form to win others' approval.. when you can minimize approval seeking, it's liberating.
3) Idiots: There will be idiots everywhere who hold conventional wisdom, superstitions, pseudoscience, and conspiracies as dogma. Through their ignorance, they feel entitled to try making you feel small. Unfortunately they are the majority, hold a lot of power and are making irreversibly bad decisions. That’s still scary.
4) Horror / spirits: This also used to petrify me. There’s some irony that some of the most religious people I know are most afraid of this category.
Do you have the balls to write down your fears and face them?
