FEAR -- THE PARALYZING LIMITER

There is one scripture I still believe in wholeheartedly.  It says that perfect love casts out fear.  I think it's more a matter of good reasoning and acceptance of reality doing the casting out.  Words are sometimes imperfect in transmitting all there is in a concept.

I believe fear is the greatest enemy we have to face in life.  It leads us to "settle" for the familiar and the safe, to comprise with our deepest needs and desires and a multitude of other evils.

I'm sure even the greatest and most successful among us have had to struggle against the monster of fear many times during their lives.  The most successful are those who squared their shoulders, made a decision and ploughed ahead.

When my department was precipitously demolished by the leaders of the cult I had fallen for, I was completely at sea.  I could have, like many did, desperately sought a way back into some other position, to the delight of the power-mad people in control who would have continued their campaigns to assure that everyone was acceptably humble and groveled just right.

It took about three years for me to find and settle upon a self-employed occupation that eventually led to the real fulfillment with which my life has been blessed.

For years, I desperately held onto my first marriage and tried every way I could think of to asuage the discontent and accede to the demands of my then wife.  Once I realized it was a hopeless endeavor, if I was to maintain any self-esteem, and developed the determination to accept the obvious, fear lost its power over me, and I was able to set out to build a new life.

It was easier the next time around to let my second wife separate from me over my teen-age daughter coming to live with me and not fearfully send her back to the overbearing rule of her mother just to not have to endure the uncomfortable aspects of having to again live alone without the comforts of companionship, regular sex, a sense of stability, etc.  In the end, it all worked out to my overall benefit.

Fear leads people to compromise with their deepest innermost needs.  It leads them to stay with jobs that demean them and sap their very souls.  I leads them to stay where they are and not move to a better and more soul-nourishing environment because they fear giving up associations, familiar surroundings, support networks, etc.

I've been back to California many times since I left there in 1981.  I could have found many reasons not to come to Arizona, and all would have been based (and quite logically so) on fear.

I did come.  I had to face difficulties.  I had to find solutions.  It was not all a "walk in the park."  Overall, I'm forever grateful I found the courage and determination to do it.

Same with coming to Cottonwood.

However it might be stated, fear is an enemy if it takes over one's life so thoroughly that no logical change can be made.  There is a time to say:  "This is the situation.  This is where I am.  I can do this, or that or something else.  This looks best in the long run.  I'm going for it.  Somehow, it will work out."

PARALYZED BY FEAR

My daughter called my attention to an ecard that got me thinking. It showed two guys talking. One said: "That was a very well laid out rational point. But, I will still hold to my emotional opinion based on no facts or evidence."

All of us non-theists encounter that attitude constantly, either in person or via print. It's called faith, which Greta Christina has defined as "an irrational attachment to a pre-existing idea regardless of any evidence that contradicts it."

Why would otherwise intelligent and highly capable people cling to such irrationality? Indeed, why did many of us, in our deluded pasts, cling to the same approach?

Pure and simple, it's FEAR. Nearly all human beings are walking bags of fear! Fear is a tremendous motivator, and political and religious "leaders" take full advantage of that fact.

We fear what might happen to us and our health and economic security in this present life, and we especially fear what might happen to us when this life is over. We possess our wonderful awareness that our animal cousins of varying degrees have no inkling about. Our beloved little dogs are aging every day and, without us, they would be up that proverbial creek with no paddle or anything else. Are they aware of their precarious position?

Not in the least. They sometimes show fear and anxiety, but not in the same way or degree as us humans.

We humans are filled with concerns, worries and anxieties. They motivate us every day.

We had occasion to spend some time with a dear friend of my wife early this week. She's in her early sixties and has clawed and worked her way to the position of executive head of the Arizona chapter of a famous and important national organization. Her husband is also a successful man with an important and high paying position with a major company. They're wonderful people and our stay with them was a delightful mini-vacation.

As I look back on the visit, I see that, for all the success and the seeming security of their position, fear looms over their lives, just as it looms over the lives of every other human being.

When Phyllis first became fast, lifelong friends with her, she was a stuggling female "working stiff" and an ardent democrat. Now she's a fanatic Republican and denounces Obama as "that socialist." We basically just listened to her tirades and tried to figure out her reasoning.

Her husband is a non-believer similar to Phyllis and I, but she clings emotionally to the concept of a god and an after-life.

Why?

Fear. She is afraid that what she has striven and sacrificed for will be diminished or taken away by "socialism." She's knows she's going to die one day and desperately wants for that not to be the end of everything. In case there is a "hanging god" judge and a real hell, continuing to at least pay lip service to him protects against that eventuality, or so people hope.

Do I worry about what the future may hold? Of course I do. I wouldn't be human if I didn't. I have the awareness, so I have the concerns.

I've just progressed to the point where I don't have to resort to irrational belief systems for comfort. Instead, I realize that what a former friend said about fifty years ago when I was commenting on my insecurities is a truth. That friend pointed out that even if everything "went south" for me, I would survive because of the social programs then in place to provide for those who were victims to total deprivation, however marginal that survival might be.

Since I realize there is no big "sugar daddy" up there somewhere and there likely is no existence beyond this brief life, I simply do the best I can each and every day, try to take care of myself and my health and keep the big picture in mind as much as I humanly can.

It sure beats being a bundle of corrosive fears and letting those fears tie me up mentally and emotionally.