There is a lot of fear in this world. There are certainly things to be afraid of, but there seems to be a disproportionate amount of fear. What are folks afraid of? I know what I’m afraid of and it’s not death by virus…

I think about where fear comes from, and how fear feeds itself on itself. Ouroboros is the name of the snake that eats its own tail. Maybe Ouroboros is one of the names of fear. I’m not a religious man but I am a spiritual one and I believe in power beyond our knowledge. I believe it and that belief gives me comfort sometimes. Sometimes that belief has me feeling like there is a willful energy striving to keep us scared and that energy is winning. It’s a flight of imagination that I easily get carried away by but imagination is a real place even if it’s only in our mind. Maybe imagination is our window into the multiverse, I am only an amateur theoretical physicist but I am certain my theory is sound.

I feel like the same power that wants to keep us scared wants to keep us small as well. A weak creature on a tired planet is easy to tame. There aren’t enough wild humans left. Maybe I’m wrong about that, I hope so. What if it’s a disease that wipes us off the planet? What if it’s a meteor the size of Jupiter? What if the planet Jupiter is actually an elaborate maze containing a monstrous and ravenous alien? What if? What if? What if? Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Billy S’spear said that.

I prefer Frank Herbert on the subject of fear -“Fear is the mind killer, the little death that brings total obliteration.”- Like Frank suggests, I embrace my fear, and when I do I find only myself. These are words I said to myself over and over before I knew how desperately I needed ways to deal my fears. Another thing I used to say was that the only way to be brave was to be scared first. Words are great, and simultaneously totally useless. Like my litany of gratitude. Great, I can remember things to be grateful for, I feel no gratitude. I can remember reasons to laugh off fear, I feel scared.

If I spend some time reflecting on what I’ve done in my life, it seems impossible to me now. All the times I’ve stumbled, literally  but also mentally. All the pain, pain I caused myself and pain that I took from others, none of it was enough to stop me. I just kept going, blind, never knowing why it was so hard. Now I know and it’s like everything is different but nothing is different. I still have to face all the challenges, laugh off all the fears. In some ways I feel less capable, the gift of knowledge has made me doubt all my old routines. I was barely coping so how effective were my mechanisms? I’m paralyzed by the fear of what else I may have still to learn. How many more arrows can outrageous fortune have left in the quiver?

I recite my litany of gratitude when I start feeling sorry for myself. Everyone has struggles. Everyone has fear. So what do we do about it? Some people stockpile toilet paper. Some people smoke fifty-seven cigarettes. I did not smoke a cigarette today. I could have, but I didn’t. That’s me facing fear instead of letting fear win. Today I felt like a loser, then I thought about it and realized I won. Maybe it’s that simple, maybe it’s just a matter of changing the words.

Feels impossible, but less impossible then when I started writing this.