Musing

today’s Musing written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park

walk report: -5C/23F, calm, clear, sunny – Gusta found someone’s discarded bone of interest, the school yard guarding rabbits were oddly absent

I would be afraid to ‘not hear or see or walk or speak’ but since I consider those things highly unlikely to occur, I am not afraid of them; we all lose our seeing and hearing to some degree but we have treatment and device solutions so I don’t need to be afraid of those; these are not fears for me, but an acceptance of reality

I’ve written about my notion of calling out fear the way we call out a bully; about naming it, writing it down, pointing it out; false fears, ‘used to be’ fears, I’ve confronted aren’t spooky any longer - not gone but the process of eliminating them is underway; fear of being irrelevant, fear of being incapable of expression, fear of being unable to express joy – these have been fears but they are not fears anymore; they are issues about which I need to be vigilant, but they don’t scare me

a ringing phone in the middle of the night scares me, a blank white page at the end of a day indicating I’d not lived it fully scares me, reaching out to help someone and failing at it scares me; there was a time when daunting fears were things I hungered for – thirsted fro - an appetite for quality of life - some are continuing complex challenges, but letting go of fear about them has been light for the path I follow; when I want to turn in a new direction there appears to be light on it, albeit faint sometimes, but it seems to be going my way; each time I say YES or NO I wonder if I saying that because I fear the contrary or if it is simply the better choice – that is my conundrum, I am afraid these fears are personal

“He who is not every day conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I don’t buy it; I think Ralph was wrong; he does, however, point up the need to address fear and that failing to address it can be life-limiting folly; fear can be a dark cold place, like a freezer where nothing grows, light doesn’t shine, nothing moves; fear is not natural – it is learned, it is taught, it is ingrained in us – and if it is learned, it can un-learned whether it is something to overcome or something to un-learn; fear of success, fear of failure, fear of loss, the list goes on and on

I know people who ‘fear being along’; I have been alone – but I don’t fear being alone again; having said that, I could say I ‘fear loss of my butterfly as I hope she fear loss of me’ but that’s a silly notion of using the word fear instead of ‘wishing something won’t happen’; these easy ‘toss-off’ fears distract, they are general ‘easy to talk about ones’; fear of the loss of loved ones, fear loss of life or limb, fear loss of safety, fear of chaos in our country, fear a lack of food, clothing, shelter – group fears I suppose, things most of us have in common but I wonder if fear is the right descriptor when concern fits better

we come to this world afraid of nothing; sure, we begin with a need to be warm, fed, dry and held and we scream pretty loud to get it – but in time we are taught to ‘not scream’, we learn that we needn’t fear being dropped on our head or left without food, clothing or shelter . . but in tandem with that we learn to fear things; fear becomes a big word, a big basket that catches all; I don’t think learning that cars hit unwary pedestrians and stove burners singe flesh is appropriate to put in the ‘fear basket’ because I don’t think they belong in the same vessel as ‘fear of trying’ or ‘fear of crying’; I don’t think they belong in the same discussion as ‘fear of failing’ or ‘fear of letting go’; letting go of fear, or of things we use fear words for – words like afraid, scared, agitation, anxiety, imminent danger, disquiet, apprehension, extreme awe, dread, fright, terror, panic, alarm, trepidation – fear can be un-learned, can it not?

Mark Kolke
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... with your voice, teach in order to learn