Fear conquered

Had an interesting experience last week. Went to a rock climbing gym and took their intro course. Such an endeavor calls up a number of my fears. Heights, social interaction, looking like an idiot, etc. etc.

But I went anyway, cause I've been ranting at Sarah so much about facing fears and I don't actively TRY to be a hypocrite, so...

I went.

And every time some fear popped up in my head, I just pushed it away. I dismissed it. I said to myself, "I'm not obligated to follow through with non-productive thoughts," and I turned my attention back to what I was doing.

There was something in my head that kept saying that I was not facing my fear, that I wasn't being honest in the way I went about it, but you know what? That's a bunch of bullshit. I went. I exposed myself as a rank beginner. I put on the rental shoes and strapped into the genitalia scrunching harness. I listened to the instructor. I did what I was told. I ignored the cooler folks arrayed around me, hop, skipping and jumping up the wall, and I did what I could do. I climbed.

And it was seriously fucking fun.

John 1 - Fear 0

Clearly, I have many fear issues, because it seems that I'm afraid of this blog...

Okay, John, point taken. I can see why you say that our fears are best allayed when confronted head-on with a trusted friend, spoken aloud and heard, and thus, dispelled into vapor. Maybe finding that person who can mirror our feelings is trickier than it sounds, and even when we find that person, he or she can only say or do so much.

I do agree that we all share similar-to-exactly-the-same fears. What we do NOT all share is the same perspective on those fears, nor do we all share the same self-realization of our fears. There are many people out there in the world that just don't dwell on their thoughts, feelings, emotions, fears. They march on through life, all action and little thought. And you know, you just can't talk to those people. They look at you like you're nuts, and when they look at you like that, you start to feel nuts.

Of course, there are plenty of people at the other end of the spectrum too, that think and ponder and worry and wade through self discovery, and they like to talk about it, too, but, well, they can only stand to talk to you about your shit for so long, and then they want to move on, and they desperately wish that you would move on as well. They have depth, they think about their thoughts and feelings and emotions, and they just don't want to dwell on yours for too long.

So, yeah, I could find someone who could say, "Yeah, I hear that," who would bolster my confidence and make me feel good, but the fact of the matter is...for me...one conversation just isn't going to make it all better. Saying it aloud doesn't release its hold on me. I wish. No, I need revisiting, reminders, and rehashing. (Well, I think I do.)

And who wants to deal with that? It gets old! My people have every right to be sick of my shit! I run the same cycles over and over again, and it's boring! It's irritating, it's self-indulgent, it's enough already!

And then, I realize that I am being repetitive and dull and...[yawn] who cares? And that thought smacks me right between the eyes, and I'm back to feeling low. Silly and pathetic. Buried under six feet of insecurities...

And here I am, back to where I began: I am the only one who can face my fears. Because in the end, no one will break this cycle...except me.

Fear IV

Sarah says:

"Our fears are private, and if we choose to reveal them to someone, we feel exposed and raw. Regardless, though, of whether or not we let anyone into our inner sanctum of flawed psyche, we alone are responsible for overcoming. We alone fight the battles, and we alone congratulate ourselves when we win one.

Possibly, for me, it's the alone part that scares me the most."

I'm not sure why (I do recognize a kernel of truth here), but I disagree with this. Or rather, I think this approach, this solo romp through the abrading, dark and lonely wilderness, is exactly wrong.

Loneliness. Darkness. The unkown. These are the tall pillars of the Temple of Fear.

And the only way to dispel them and vanquish fear is to drag your fears into the light of day, share them with other people, solicit input. Name the beast and steal its power. That sort of thing.

It's all very Dungeons and Dragons, innit?

Truthfully, I can tell you that every fear I've named, that I've discussed with another person, has lost its spell on me. Every. Single. One.

Because, I believe, we all have more or less the same fears. It's clinging to exceptionalism that keeps us in that solipsistic nightmare. Once you concede that neither you nor your fears are special, they recede into the distance. Once you ask other people how they dealt with those same fears, you gain the perspective you need to move on. This is the stuff of support groups and advice columns and close confidantes and trusted siblings or parents or spouses. This is what it is to be alive and participating.

A long time ago I heard the Churchill line, "All we have to fear is fear itself," and I thought, "Well, what the fuck does that mean?" Now, I see it so clearly. Fear itself is the thing making the darkness so dark. Fear itself is what keeps us lonely and isolated.

I won't pretend to have conquered all my fears. Half the time I'm only dimly aware that I'm afraid of something. The clearest clue I get in adulthood is anger. If something is making me angry, there's an extremely good chance that I'm simply afraid of it.

And once I've identified, I think I'm duty-bound to walk through the fear and move on. Eleanor Roosevelt said, "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."

I'll leave off now, while I'm still buying my own line on this one.

Fear III

It was my idea, this subject of fear, which would imply that I had much to say on the subject. However, like John said, the task has become daunting. In avoidance of becoming too self-indulgent with my ramblings, I have become almost completely mute on the subject.

Odd. Odd because in reality, fear is one of my biggest issues. Along with guilt and insecurity, I embody the trifecta of basic human, emotional problems. And they are all made up in my head.

So I looked up the definition of fear, and, paraphrased, it is the emotional reaction of anxiety, agitation, or concern that we generate when encountered with a threat, real or imagined.

Real or imagined...I suspect that the imagined threats are the most profound ones. Real threats are understood, and reactions to them predictable. But the threats we make up in our heads cause us to act, react, or not act every day.

Could not fear, then, be one of the greatest motivators in our lives? Does not fear dictate our next maneuver? Can we not boil it all down to some fear: fear of death, fear of growing old, fear of change, fear of staying the same, fear of confrontation and anger, fear of losing friends, fear of intimacy, fear of vulnerability, fear of...?

At least, that's how it is for me. And the funny thing about it is, if and when I do conquer a fear, it goes unnoticed, uncongratulated, unacknowledged - because it was my fear that I made up in my own head. No one else saw the problem I was having, nor did anyone even have an inkling that there could have or should have been a problem. I just finally did what I needed to do.

Our fears are private, and if we choose to reveal them to someone, we feel exposed and raw. Regardless, though, of whether or not we let anyone into our inner sanctum of flawed psyche, we alone are responsible for overcoming. We alone fight the battles, and we alone congratulate ourselves when we win one.

Possibly, for me, it's the alone part that scares me the most.

Fear II

Why is it that I can write about God ad infinitum, but I find the topic of fear so daunting?

Fear has been operative in my life at all the crucial junctures. When I quit drinking (coming up on 17 years sober, thanks), I remember the fear switch flipping from too-afraid-to-quit to too-afraid-to-die. I've feared being different from everyone else, and I've feared being the same as everyone else. I've feared letting people know me, and I've feared being unknown.

Fear is what? Air?

Fear is a way to describe a feeling, a discomfort. I used to feel uncomfortable all the time, so I drank to remove that feeling. It didn't help. In the end, fear help me move on.

When I've moved forward in my life, it's been by doing things I'm afraid of. But then, my fear has often saved me from injuring myself, like in traffic, in my bicycle, in the city.

Fear is what? Information?

Is fear the dark side of hope? And how quickly I can toggle between the two.

FEAR

Fear is one facet of our flawed and complicated human nature. We humans have myriad issues that we contend with on a regular basis, but fear is a recurring emotion. If fear were classified as genus in the family of human nature, then insecurity would be a species...

The other day, in an email, John mentioned that I am insecure. (He wasn't being mean.) It wasn't the first time I had heard that, either. It's true; I am. I have an annoying habit of making an assertion, and then quickly retracting it, or qualifying it, or apologizing for it. I believe that it is borne out of fear. I am afraid of being wrong when I was sure I was right, or stupid when I thought I was being funny. I am afraid of sticking my foot in my mouth in a spate of nervous verbal diarrhea, or of appearing arrogant when I'm really just trying to be confidant. I am afraid...ah, hell, it's a long, dull list.

And I don't think I am the only one who has this issue. Most people I know are insecure about something. I don't blame John for pointing it out; his reasoning is sound. Why would I be insulted? Our friends want the best for us, don't they? Fact is, it's good to have someone call bullshit on us.

So why do we have little pockets of insecurity tucked away in our consciences, only to reveal themselves at odd and unwelcome moments, like...roaches? Or political pundits?

These little insecurity roaches are our worst little personal fears. These small yet powerful fears are deeply embedded in our psyches, deposited like little roach eggs, waiting to hatch and scramble around making everything feel dirty. And while I believe that I or anyone else could dig down and find where these little eggs were laid, it really doesn't do us any good to do that. At some point, there was incubation and hatching, and now, as adults, we must deal with the full-grown dirty little roaches.

Unfortunately, I have not yet found a magic fumigator to rid myself of all my roaches. And alas, just as I think I've just about stomped one of the little suckers flat, I discover that it's gone and laid a few more eggs that are just hatching! This is maddening, an ongoing battle, but the upside is that we have our friends and our loved ones to yell out, "EEK! A roach! Kill it!" And with any luck, you'll get the little sucker, or maybe that friend or loved one will join you in the attack and help you smash the little buggers until you are pest-free.

Alternatively, our enemies are prone to just shine light on our little roach-fears, causing them (or us) to scurry into the dark corners, only to emerge again later, fatter and feistier. This isn't helpful, and it isn't done out of love.

Thank God for friends that want to help you stomp those little suckers, and a pox upon the enemies that just want to expose them. Perhaps our collective consciousness should be our guide to understand that we all share similar fears, to varying degrees, and we should surround ourselves with people who want to help us stomp them out, to mutual benefit.

God, Part V

Here's what I think. Me = me. God = not me.

Which is to say, that as far as I know, everything that's not me is probably god. It's that whole yin and yang, self and other. In as much as everything in the 'other' basket has some influence on me that is beyond my control, it must be god.

But let's run down the god checklist, just to make sure:

1) Is it all powerful?

Yeah. Prolly. At least as far as I'm concerned, it is, since it encompasses all the powers that I don't have and all the ones I have also.

2) Does it move in mysterious ways?

Hell yes. Half the time I can't find my ass with both hands. When I figure 'everything' out, I'll drop you a line.

3) Are its familial relations a perplexing mess?

Uh huh. Like the Beverly Hillbillies. Um...actually, no...not LIKE the Beverly Hillbillies. The Beverly Hillbillies. And the royal families of Europe.

4) Is it beautiful?

Yeah. Sometimes you have to cock your head funny, but yeah.

Yup, passes the god test.

Passing On

Amidst the media flurry this week surrounding celebrity deaths, John and I each lost someone who was part of our own lives. In the case of my friend, he was old and his body was failing him, though his mind remained sharp. His eventual passing yesterday morning was expected, and to the degree to which anyone can say this, it was a relief. For those who believe in God and heaven, we take comfort in believing that he has rest and peace now, and that there will be a time when we see him again with the Lord.

While that belief can offer a certain amount of comfort, it remains abstract and theoretical, because there still remains the pain of grief and mourning, for all of his family and friends, here and now. The only way to describe how I felt yesterday upon hearing the news is just simply sad. I am sad that he is gone, because I know how much he was loved and cherished by his family. I am sad that he is gone because it's another loss that marks the progression of time. I am sad because I will not be able to be with the family to share in the loss and the memories, sad that I mourn alone.

This man, Papa Russell, had a great and positive impact on my life directly. He owned land that he offered for a camp (that he helped to build) that was free of charge, and it ran for many years. For several years, my dad was the camp director, and I was there every year. Papa Russell also had a large family, and his grandchildren became a large, extended, second family for me during years of my childhood that were difficult - years during which I felt like a fish out of water, a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. But I was able to spend great amounts of time with these people during the summers, and we kids would roam around the woods, play in the barn, play canasta at Memaw and Papa Russell's house... They truly were like family to me. And Papa was the patriarch - a kind and generous man who made this possible.

So while I can feel comfort about where I believe he has passed on to, I also take comfort in the fact that Papa Russell gave me a gift. He gave me a place to feel at home, and he left a wonderful legacy of love and charity. And that is really how we have to deal with death, isn't it? Because we won't truly know what's next until we get there, we can only deal with what we have right now. And right now we have lessons learned, gifts given, and lives altered.

So while the media can continue to report on the impact that these celebrities had on the "world," which is truly a contrived effort, given the fact that for most of us, it was just entertainment, I had, and John had, personal experience with people who made real and personal impact on our lives. Their deaths force us to look at our lives, and determine what we can do better, to redeem our time in a worthy manner, to honor the gifts that these men gave us, these lessons that they've passed on to us.

God, Part IV

A good friend of mine passed away this week. A sweet, kind and generous guy.

And so it happened that I was thinking about god on my way to work this morning. I was thinking about how people really believe that what they think about god is important (including myself). But god (in whatever form you believe or don't) is as abstract to us as any concept expressible in language. How do you feel about god? I don't know. How do you feel about blue? Or force? Or latitude? How do you feel about those things?

My friend Dan is gone, and it means something. It affects me. I feel compelled to change. But I don't know how. It strikes me that god, at root, is this not knowing what to do, but believing that there IS something to be done.

God is that lack of meaning that hangs in the air, creating a vacuum that we fill as best we can.

And good bye, Dan. I'll do my best to listen to everything you ever told me.

GOD, Part III

John's post illustrates to me exactly why I thought we should try this blog: we have similar viewpoints, yet we reach different conclusions. It's both fascinating and enlightening, potentially to the benefit of both the readers and the writers.

In reference to the fact that John does not believe in a God that is controlling his life, well, neither do I; I do not believe in a God that controls all aspects of my life. Now, I am quite aware of a vast array of Christians that DO believe that God is in control. The God that I believe in allows us to exercise our own free will, and we make all of our decisions on our own, and the consequences to such are real and worldly consequences, good and bad. Luck, timing, chance, other people's decisions - all of these are influences, with cause and effect being the law of the universe. God is not rewarding people here and now for their good, neither is God punishing people for their bad. We are all responsible for the roads we travel, good and bad, with a little chance thrown in the mix.

This concept I've just mentioned, that God is not in control of my life, does not necessarily mean to me that God does not ever intervene. However, who's to say when God does or does not intervene in the lives of people here on Earth? It's certainly not for me to say. Unfortunately, there are many people who look for that evidence in their lives, one reason being to bolster their faith. But faith, by definition, does not require evidence. Whether or not God intervenes in my life is not indicative of my faith. The other reason people look for God intervening in their lives is to explain the unexplainable, but that is a slippery slope - does that mean God caused the bad stuff, too? "No, Satan did," they may say. But why did not God intervene that time? "Well..." There is no good answer for that, and it leads to more pain and confusion, a gap between belief and reality. I don't believe that's how it works. Shit happens. It just does. Whether by accident or consequence, stuff just goes on in the world, good and bad. Maybe God is involved, maybe Satan is involved, but maybe it was just...life.

Another point that John made was that he is "satisfied with not knowing how the world works...or rather...finding out very slowly..." I am in complete agreement with this statement, too. John's right: this IS the human experience. Belief in God does not give me any more answers to many of our "big" questions. In other words, I don't believe that every detail of the universe is to be found in the Bible. There are those believers who say that the world is 6,000 years old and that there were no dinosaurs and that there is no life on other planets, period. Poppycock. I don't believe that just because it isn't in the Bible, then it must not exist. I believe it is a mistake to be that myopic. The possibilities are infinite. I find truth in the Bible, but my truth is not limited TO the Bible. As John said, "The natural explanations are as fantastic as anything anyone could make up."

I just happen to believe that the natural explanations are there by design.

When it comes right down to it, I really believe that "religion" has done a real number on the world, misleading people about who God really is. In fact, I do not like to be referred to as "religious" in regard to my beliefs. I like to reserve "religious" for secular things, like the way I have coffee in the morning, or the way my son is about washing his hands. The God I believe in is not affiliated with the religions of the world, and I don't believe they really know who God is. That is, to be sure, MY opinion and admittedly, a broad generalization. But it is sad to me to see and hear the misconceptions about God in the world, and religions are to blame for that...religions that are based on men, their rules, their ideas, and their desire for power, glory, and money. Marx was right when he said that religion is an opiate. Religion is an ugly business, putting limits on people's free will and stealing money from their pockets.

God, however, is infinite, and cannot be limited by my own understanding of the world or of the universe.

God, Part II

I don't believe in God. I'm an atheist.

I wanted to state that as plainly and succinctly as I could, right up front, so I could get it out of the way, because in the end, when you're talking about God, what you don't believe matters much less than what you DO believe.

So, while I don't believe in God (proper noun) as a conscious and all-powerful being that lives in the sky and controls all aspects of my life, I probably do believe in god (catch all common noun) as a name for all the things that influence my life and are beyond my control. In my view, the wind is god, and my kids are god and traffic is god, and, to some odd degree, other people's perceptions of God are god. I'm not running the show, so if I want to live a good life, I have to navigate this vast set of circumstances that aren't of my making, and I call those circumstances 'god.'

I used to be a strident atheist, a devout non-believer, sure of my positions and scornful of other people's beliefs. Now, I don't care so much. Because when it rains, whether that's God whizzing on us or a simple over-saturation of water vapor in the clouds, the fact remains that I'm getting wet. Believers and non-believers live on the same planet. We all move in a world of effects, regardless of the true causes. I mostly think it's best to get on with it, however you can.

I won't belabor any of my core points by arguing against the existence of God, as others conceive it (him? her?), because I don't see any real point. I find supernatural explanations for human experience entirely unnecessary, not even tempting, because, as near as I can see, the natural explanations are as fantastic as anything anyone could make up.

I'm satisfied with not knowing how the world works completely, or rather I'm satisfied with only finding out very slowly how they work. That, to me, is the human experience.

God could exist. I don't think so, but if I'm honest I really don't know. What I do know is that if a biblical God does exist, his workings are so far beyond my faculties of understanding, as to make any examination of them pointless.

I'll leave any further reference to Christianity for another post.

GOD, Part I

He said, "Let's blog about God first," so I said, "Awesome!"

No, not really. I actually said, "Shit."

Why did I say that? you may ask. I'm not certain; I'll let you figure it out.

I believe that God exists. Moreover, I believe IN God. I don't just believe in a higher power, I believe in THE God...you know, the one in the Bible. And to top that off, I not only believe in the God of the Bible, I also believe in Jesus Christ, the son of God, which makes me a Christian, too.

I am quite confident in what I choose to believe about God and the Bible and Christ. And it is fine with me if I am called a Christian. This is, though, the point of departure between most of the "Christian" world and myself. I do not adhere to any particular religion or denomination, which means that I do not like assumptions to be made about me based on what the rest of the world knows about popular Christianity. But this blog entry will not be about Christianity, it will be about why I believe in God.

It's an interesting journey, being raised in a particular belief system, then leaving home to embark on real, "adult" freedom. Once outside of the confines of the environment that Mom and Dad provided, I was free to examine what I had been hearing all of my life. I was raised to believe in God and in Christ and in all of the truth of the Bible. I was raised that way, but that didn't mean to me that I HAD to believe it. It wasn't an imperative. In fact, the way they raised me, I had a complete understanding of free will, and I was ready to experience my own free will when I left for college. During those college years, then, I often thought about whether or not I believed that what Mom and Dad had been teaching me all of those years was right or not.

I am an analytical person by nature. I am methodical and logical to the core. I am also, therefore, a bit of a skeptic. It occurred to me, once I had the distance to be at least somewhat more objective, that believing in God and the Bible was really just as arbitrary as believing in the Big Bang Theory, Darwin's Origin of the Species, Buddhism, Hinduism, New Age Existentialism, Mother Earth, Wicca, or...nothing. In other words, there was no real evidence that I could see that would compel me or anyone else to know for absolute certain that God and the Bible were more true than Buddha or Allah or a big purple unicorn standing in the corner.

"Evidence" is in the eye of the beholder. Many in the Christian world will point to all kinds of mysterious occurrences in life and the cosmos and say, "See? That's the hand of God." I don't see it that way. As I looked around at the world that surrounded me, and saw a combination of beauty and pain, loveliness and ugliness, love and hate, I knew that there was no clear sign pointing to God. At the same time, though, the other theories and beliefs and possible explanations for all that I could see in the world seemed...incomplete. In my mind, there were as many holes in science and religion as the nonbelievers would say there are in the simple explanation of God. But there was one thought that remained with me that I just couldn't shake off: this - all of this world in its beauty and glory and misery - did not just...happen.

For me, then, the conclusion was swift and simple - something bigger than me is behind all of this. I could not reconcile believing in nothing in my mind. That just wasn't possible for me. As a consequence of knowing that about myself - that I was not capable of believing in nothing and being peaceful with that - I chose to believe in God.

And I do believe that belief is a choice; it isn't a feeling, and it isn't something that happens TO you. There may be influences on that choice, but it's a choice nonetheless. I am certain that there are many who would say that I was just not able to overcome my upbringing. Okay, fine. Believe that if you will. I don't like that because I feel like it does not give me the credit to have a brain and think on my own. Of course, we are all influenced by our upbringings, but at some point, in our adulthood, we have to take all of the experience and knowledge that we can gather and make up our own minds. My mind did not like the alternatives.

Believing in God makes me feel peaceful, and it gives me an enormous amount of freedom. I am now free to worry about all the little mundane things, as well as all the big decisions I need to make. If I had to worry about the mundane AND the big decisions AND wonder why/when/how this all happened, I would go insane.

So, I choose to believe in God. And I will not say that it is an act of faith because I am, in no way, a person of great faith. It just works for me. And I know that it is arbitrary, and I know that it seems simple-minded to some, but that won't change my mind. I do question the choice sometimes, because I am an analytical thinker, and I do feel, sometimes, that I might be just taking the easy way out. But that really isn't it at all. It is my attempt at reaching a logical conclusion about something that is totally illogical, and it works for me.

The Explanation

Sarah lives in San Antonio.

John lives in Boston.

They are friends from childhood, scattered to the wind and rooted in different places.

They have different ideas about the world.

They will discuss them here.