...when you're no longer searching for beauty and love; just some kind of life with the edges taken off... -Pulp, The Fear
I've been thinking about fear a lot lately, which should not be confused with me actually being frightened. It's more like the fear you live with, or rather the one that keeps you from living. I think it's on my mind because of this book I've been reading (I'm a slow reader. I've said that before.). A woman's self psychoanalysis from the 70s: My Mother Myself. Yes, go ahead and laugh, I might as well be reading Our Bodies, Ourselves. But I love to listen to what people talk about in therapy, and this is so it.
Without going too much into what the book says, I can just say that it talks a lot about this deep-rooted, passed-down-over-generations fear that women carry (the book is about women and since I am one, I don't mind unapologetically leaving the men out of this). Basically, it's what keeps you tied to all the safe decisions, instead of the ones that truly grip you. The way I like to put it is, You know what you'd rather be doing, so why aren't you doing it?
Sometimes you don't even know what you'd rather be doing. Or, to be more precise, you've kept yourself so nicely distracted -with work, boys, television- that you don't even get the chance to sit with yourself for 5 lonely minutes a day to think about what it is that you'd rather be doing. Evasion. Blame it on the Fear.
When I started paying close attention to the lives of much older people I know, I realized that you don't necessarily, automatically, get a wake-up call. People can *actually* go through life without ever finding their... thing. No one will ever make you grow up. There is no magic birthday number. I find that immensely chilling, because being stagnant is probably one of my greatest fears. I'm, like, pathologically afraid of never growing up. (Ok, not really, it's for emphasis, right?) So what keeps us little, stuck, not going forward? Fear, dude. Fear. The secret fear that your parents won't approve; that people won't like you; that everyone will know that you tried and failed; that you'll be poor forever; that you'll never find anyone to love/you again; that you'll get fat; that it'll hurt forever.
As usual, it seems easier for me to find examples of this Fear overrunning other lives than my own. Or I could say I know exactly where it affects me most, but I distract myself nicely by worrying about other people, poor them.
I've been thinking about fear a lot lately, which should not be confused with me actually being frightened. It's more like the fear you live with, or rather the one that keeps you from living. I think it's on my mind because of this book I've been reading (I'm a slow reader. I've said that before.). A woman's self psychoanalysis from the 70s: My Mother Myself. Yes, go ahead and laugh, I might as well be reading Our Bodies, Ourselves. But I love to listen to what people talk about in therapy, and this is so it.
Without going too much into what the book says, I can just say that it talks a lot about this deep-rooted, passed-down-over-generations fear that women carry (the book is about women and since I am one, I don't mind unapologetically leaving the men out of this). Basically, it's what keeps you tied to all the safe decisions, instead of the ones that truly grip you. The way I like to put it is, You know what you'd rather be doing, so why aren't you doing it?
Sometimes you don't even know what you'd rather be doing. Or, to be more precise, you've kept yourself so nicely distracted -with work, boys, television- that you don't even get the chance to sit with yourself for 5 lonely minutes a day to think about what it is that you'd rather be doing. Evasion. Blame it on the Fear.
When I started paying close attention to the lives of much older people I know, I realized that you don't necessarily, automatically, get a wake-up call. People can *actually* go through life without ever finding their... thing. No one will ever make you grow up. There is no magic birthday number. I find that immensely chilling, because being stagnant is probably one of my greatest fears. I'm, like, pathologically afraid of never growing up. (Ok, not really, it's for emphasis, right?) So what keeps us little, stuck, not going forward? Fear, dude. Fear. The secret fear that your parents won't approve; that people won't like you; that everyone will know that you tried and failed; that you'll be poor forever; that you'll never find anyone to love/you again; that you'll get fat; that it'll hurt forever.
As usual, it seems easier for me to find examples of this Fear overrunning other lives than my own. Or I could say I know exactly where it affects me most, but I distract myself nicely by worrying about other people, poor them.
***
PS Listen to CBC Radio 3, back online or via weekly podcast. It's great for hearing great Canadian bands you'd never heard about before. And then download them. And then when they come to town, go see them live and buy their CDs. Yay!
*Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwarren/
4 comments:
Wow, Isabel. I think you hit the nail on the end when you said we can oftentime distract ourselves from worry about our own lives so that we can free up time to worry about the lives of others. It's so true, and yet so counterproductive...
I hope it doesn't come off like I think I think any sort of distraction is a good idea. Just a reality.
Isabel...
tu nombre me parece familiar...
tu escribias en la zona de contacto... hace mucho tiempo atras??
si es asi... wow... q bueno encontrarte... a mi me gustaban muchos tus escritos...
si no es...sorry por la intromision...
saludos
Oui, Lulú c'est moi!
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