a good friend of mine recently posted a photo on facebook. black and white. it said these words: “fear is a liar“. when i was growing up, my parents had an album in their record collection of a band called “Fear”. as was usual for me, i’d sit and look at the cover for hours. devour. i would read the liner notes copiously – labor over them, as if i were studying for a test. the thing that was unusual about this particular album is that it was punk. my parents didn’t really do punk, so as i kid of 14 or so, i was drawn to this record and also completely and totally mortified by it. why was this here alongside glen campbell, waylon jennings, olivia newton john and barbara streisand? i feared the reason. my friend beth’s facebook post and the recollection of this old dusty memory of mine made me think of all things i am currently afraid of and why. fear of death. fear of being alone. fear of another person. walking on eggshells. fear of wasting life. fear of success. fear of really being happy. fear of failing. fear of fear. it’s the passenger riding alongside you that you can sense, but cannot not see. free floating, all around. i am fortunate to have had a fair amount of lessons with regard to fear, a hard education that not everyone gets. the most important thing i have learned (thus far…ahem, cough cough-) is that fear is simply False Evidence Appearing Real. if i am afraid of something, i need to take a long look at why; certainly, we will all die. alone? we are never really alone and, if we are, maybe that’s exactly where we should be at that moment. fear of another person? walking on eggshells? mmmmm, yeah, no thanks. the truth is, fear can be a good thing, too. it can shake us up and force us to remember that we are in control, a signal to make a change, to move into a place where fear cannot find us. for me, this place is love. “love is patient, love is kind. it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. it does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs…”. where there is real love, fear cannot exist, cannot enter. but how do we get there when fear can be such a powerful force in our lives…the shadow that no one really wants to follow them, but that you know is there, lurking, lingering? i don’t really know the answer to this, but i do know that love (and it’s counterpart, faith) is exponentially stronger. i have made a commitment to myself: i will be fearless. i will not let fear run me. sure, there might be slips here and there, but on the other side of your fear – whatever that might be – is freedom. find it. face it. do it. fuck fear. join me, won’t you?
©littlebrownbutterfly