fear

no fear.

don't fear the reaper.

fear not.

fear and loathing.

fear the lord thy god.

fear. fear. fear.

fear [feer]

noun

a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.
a specific instance of or propensity for such a feeling: an abnormal fear of heights.
concern or anxiety; solicitude: a fear for someone's safety.
reverential awe; esp. toward god.
that which causes a feeling of being afraid; that of which a person is afraid: cancer is a common fear.
-verb (used with object)
to regard with fear; be afraid of.
to have reverential awe of.
-verb (used without object)
to have fear; be afraid.

i can imagine no condition i disdain more than the state of fear. teaching my children to fear fear and fight fear and avoid fear and challenge fear is one of my primary responsibilities as a parent.

it is the single worst thing i have ever felt. moreover, it is easily the most stultifying feeling one can harbor. i've heard some parents consciously or subconsciously hope their children do not surpass them in certain ways, (i guess the ways that are most important to them?) perhaps they do not want to be outdone by their children from a severe insecurity. that very idea is abominable.

fear comes naturally in this world. as possibly the only species on the planet with self awareness, the only creatures who know we are dying, who understand the consequences of living, who must face down the fear of our own demise either sooner or later, we have a unique relationship with fear.

i am a-scurred, too. i am afraid of things so seriously that i will not even utter what they are for fear of giving them an upper hand. (i suppose it's that old mock the devil and he will flee thing.) fear is my worst me. any prejudices i ever had were born of fear. any childish beliefs came from a basic fear, a basic fear i was born with. when i was a child i was afraid of the darkness. i feared nightly. i was afraid of getting lost in downtown la after that happened to me once. i feared brutal stepdads. i was afraid of failure, (still am.) i was afraid of success. (yeah, still am that, too.) and so on...

if i want to be my best me, i recognize that the absence of fear is a basic starting point for me. i think it is for everyone, too. whatever scares should be debunked and demystified. if foolish consistencies are the hobgoblin of little minds, the most foolish consistency of all is the act of allowing fear to persist.

do you fear terrorism? are you afraid of bullies or ghosts? does the concept of a hell bother you? does cancer scare you? heart attack? impotence? old age? lost youth? traffic collisions? government conspiracies? random violence? getting caught? your dad? guns? your boyfriend's wife? the number 13? what is it? whatever it is i hope you vanquish it.

i think as we age our fears create our illnesses. whatever we fear that is able to gain some dominion over us leads to those ways in which we become twisted. maybe it leads to physical debilitation but what seems obvious is that fear leads to mental and emotional instabilities, which can in turn lead to real psychoses.

i think it is always important to be on one's guard from fears. for me to live a healthy life i think i must try hard to render my fears powerless, recognize them for what they are, deconstruct them, then proceed in the knowledge learned unafraid.

and so it is with my kids. i want them to be fearless. i want them to be respectful, but fearless. as it is i do not allow terra to be afraid. she suggested she was afraid of the dark at one time. she said she was afraid of monsters. she said she was scared of the noises outside at night. every time i heard something like that from her i scoffed. i explained it was natural to worry about those things, (and terra is certainly one who worries about new concepts,) but that ultimately we could know certain things about what scares us. when she feared the dark at bedtime i asked her if every morning she woke and everything was fine and she confirmed the truth in that statement. when she expressed her fear of earthquakes one night recently after seeing some images from haiti at school, as she cried over something that is actually worthy of some real concern, (concern, not fear,) i spoke to her of odds. she did not understand odds. so i appealed to her sense of trusting mommy and daddy to do everything humanly possible to keep her safe, which pacified her. since then the subject has come up a couple of times if briefly, which tells me she still has some fear about earthquakes but i feel like we're working on it. we are a team, her mother, mark, me and her. we are always at work on dispelling our collective fears. i am hopeful one day as i lay on my death bed she will be there, she will be brave and thereby show me she is prepared to endure without me, and she will console me and i will die in peace knowing full well that we are and have been dignified creatures.

i'll tell you one thing i am afraid of. i am afraid of terra and mark someday harboring many and sundry fears. as one who admits the influence of conditioning, i in no way think my children are immune from the maladies of the evening local news. rather i believe it is my daily duty, my life's work, my most noble charge to help them combat fears of all types. in this way, if i am successful in my small role in mark's and terra's sphere of influence, my babies can live healthy lives, daring greatly, perhaps failing from time to time but achieving too and accomplishing balance in their lives.

fdr said it. right? "there is nothing to fear but fear itself." respect-yes. but fear? no. it is a sad state, a bad way to spend one's life, every bit as unfortunate as poverty or physical debilitation.