F E A R

f e a r
1. A feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger.
2. A feeling of disquiet or apprehension: a fear of looking foolish.
3. Extreme reverence or awe, as toward a supreme power.
4. A reason for dread or apprehension: Being alone is my greatest fear.

A recent confrontation with my inner self has once again forced me to dig deeper into the abyss, attempting to uncover answers that I've already previously discovered before. Today, I just felt like sharing it.

I've always been afraid of many things growing up in this world. Some things more than others. I don't fear many things in the physical world, except spiders maybe. But delve into the world of social fears, and the bell starts ringing. Fear of abandonment, loneliness, failure, rejection, judgment... I'm not about to list them all because there'd be an overflow of HTML and my blog will start to look more like the DSM. But I think the one that encapsulates it all is fear itself. In other words, and this might sound a bit strange, I'm scared to be afraid. Fear has successfully screwed up many things in my life and continually causes grief. It has indefinitely reached the peak of my hate list. Funny thing about my fears is that I still have them. Since the day my brain had reached the stage in human development where the notion of fear became real, it's all been sticking with me ever since. Only difference between now and then is I have the ability to endure some of them. When we get older, we learn how to cope with fear better. But all the same. It's still there knocking on my door every time I walk into a room full of strangers, eyes set on me, or upon entering silent mode during a one on one conversation over dinner.

I recently watched "Troy" the other day, and Achilles (Brad Pitt) was my favorite character, hands down. In "Godfather II", young Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) was an extreme pleasure to watch. Chili Palmer (John Travolta) in "Be Cool" was amazing. Envious is an understatement of how I feel about these characters. Why? Because they all lacked something that has otherwise been so unfortunately and negatively abundant in my life. Fear... They all did amazing things, because they had none of it. It's only natural for me to imagine the possibilities if I was blessed with the same fortune. Where does fear come from? God? Life? Parents? People? Media? Ourselves? The answer may be all. But I think we're born with it, contributing to our humanity. To be fearless, would mean to be inhuman, and possibly a God, similar to the way Achilles was portrayed in the movie.

At the end of it all, I'm just sick and tired of being afraid. I envy fearlessness because it's the one thing I'm dying to conquer, but seems impossible... because it will "free my mind" as Morpheus would say. The only current solution remains to be endurance... and enduring it is a whole new blog entry.