B-Biggest Fears: #atozchallenge

B-Biggest Fears: 

        In my younger days I was fearful of many things.  Often they were stupid things that weren't worth getting worked up over.  Now that I'm older I don't get all that worked up over such things because most of them I've had to confront and since those things didn't kill me or have any great emotional impact on me the fears have been essentially overcome.   

        If we're talking about the things that make me afraid now then I'll include things like heights, tight places, or being unable to breathe.  I'm not afraid of anything supernatural though I can't say I've ever been encountered with a fearful supernatural situation.  No point in being afraid of the things I have no control over such as natural disasters or man-made conflagrations.  Sometimes I think about bad things that could happen, but those are mostly just exercises in thought rather than debilitating emotions. 

        Getting older--for me at least--has made me more rational about being afraid.  If I were to name things that might be considered biggest fears to some degree, they would be things like something bad happening to one of my kids or grandkids, facing a catastrophic health risk that would leave me dependent on others, or losing what little I have in the way of finances and material comfort.  Those would be bad things to happen, but I don't dwell upon any of it to the point where I would call myself fearful in spirit. 

        Fear and worry are detrimental to living with hope and quality daily existence.  Apprehension holds us back from moving forward at a comfortable pace.  My preference regarding fear is to be afraid of what is actually before me rather than having some vague state of mind where I live in fear of something that may or may not happen.  Rational fear might make sense, but if the fear exists in an imagined realm then I'd prefer not to dwell upon it.   That is unless it's something that I'm writing about.

         Do you live in a state of ambiguous fear?    Are there specific fears that you can justifiably cite as worth thinking about?    What actions do you take when fear takes hold of you?

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Fear and Oblivion

This image was selected as a picture of the week on the Malay Wikipedia for the 44th week, 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

        When I was a child I was fearless when it came to the woes facing the world.  My fears dealt more with issues at school or being embarrassed because I did something stupid.  Nuclear destruction or devastation from natural forces barely crossed my mind other than a certain fascination with those things.  Disasters such as these were movie themes or fantasies in my head.  Nothing to be concerned about or of which to be afraid.

        Even though in school we regularly had disaster duck and cover drills, the concept was far from any reality in my mind.   Even during the tension of the Cuban Missile Crisis, hiding under my desk periodically in preparation for the bombs to come or hearing the ominous sounds of the air raid sirens that were tested precisely at noon one Friday each month did not instill trembling within me.  On the contrary the drills and exercises were fuel for fantasy rather than a reminder of the reality of any threat to my existence.

        During the fifties and sixties I developed a curiosity and edgy enjoyment regarding things that should reasonably instill fear and dread in most of us.  A part of me longed to see giant mutated insects, prehistoric beasts, or monstrous entities roaming my neighborhood and destroying the city in which we lived.  An atomic bomb detonated in some nearby city seemed like an interesting possibility.

         When I was in junior high school I read John Hersey's Hiroshima--a true account of the first use of the atom bomb on a city.  The book impacted me, yet still did not frighten me in any way.  If anything, reading the book made me even more curious about the horrors of a major disaster.  My interest wouldn't necessarily translate into any strong desire to experience actual horror, but I did have a deep seated interest in the subject.

         Since childhood I've had an interest in the topic of world annihilation and that continues to this day.  Judging from the popularity of apocalyptic and dystopian genres I'm not the only one.   The B sci-fi movies of the 1950's have become in more recent times big budget extravaganzas as well as intriguing low cost indie films.   More than one television show has addressed the topic in varying ways from the serious to the comedic.   Apocalypse, death, and destruction seem to translate into big money.

         Do you think many people in our time have a societal death wish of sorts?    Do you enjoy films in the genres that center around fear and oblivion?   Do you have any favorite apocalyptic or catastrophically themed films?

In the Back of My Mind (#atozchallenge)

Beach Boys  "In the Back of My Mind" (1965)





In the Back of My Mind

       With as many blessings as I've had in my life and so much support from family and friends, you'd think I'd be bursting with confidence.  But I've often had my fears.  There were many times I've felt alone. Times when I didn't think I'd do good at the things I was supposed to do.  Things usually turned out well for the most part.  I would fear failure, but I'd almost always succeed if I pursued something.  It's just that sometimes I just didn't try to do things because I was afraid.

        Good grades came relatively easy for me and my teachers liked me.  I was a good kid and never made much trouble.  In college I took a bit of a turn for the worse, but it was a rebellious time in the early seventies and I was not particularly thrilled with college anyway.   Not that I was trouble, but scholastically speaking I was a bit lackadaisical.    And I lacked focus.

          Once I entered the world of work I was back to my milieu of succeeding.  In the first job I actually got on my own (without my father's influence) I was immediately hired as assistant manager.  I was placed in positions of trust and well-liked by the other employees.  I masked my lack of confidence in my abilities and gained the confidence of those who had hired me.

          That was basically my job history from then on.  I almost always ended up in a management position and in the cases were I didn't it was because I had turned down management offers.  I guess I should have been super confident in everything I did, but still I was scared.  What if I failed?   What if I got fired?

         Too bad marriage and relationships aren't more like jobs.  You never really know absolutely what the other person is thinking.  Of course my wives didn't know everything I was thinking either I suppose.   I'm a big believer in openness and good communication.  But showing fear often displays weakness when it's the fear of what can happen in a relationship.

        When it's over for good you can replay everything and question your actions.  I reexamined every conversation I could remember, every look, every action.  I don't know that many good answers can be found when it comes to thinking about things that happened in moments in the past.

        What has already happened has happened.  What's going to happen is going to happen.   I'm only human.  Certain fears will always be in the back of my mind.  Let them bug me, but I can't let them rule me.

          Do you often have insecurities?    Have you lived a blessed life?     Do you ever see yourself as somewhat neurotic?  

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The Fears We Inherit

fear (Photo credit: siette)

       We inherit many of our physical traits directly from our parents.  Our hair color, physical build, or facial features will more often than not be similar to how one of our parents looked.  Now I can look in the mirror and see a very distinct resemblance to my own father.  It's in the genes.

        Other aspects that may have been passed to us from our parents are not genetic, but cultural preferences, ethics, and beliefs about certain things.  Sometimes it may be societal while in other cases they be things that are mostly confined to our own family.  Mothers and fathers shape their kids to believe many things whether they intend to or not.

        Since I was a small child I've been told negative things about cats.  My father was never particularly fond of felines, but he never said much about the subject.  On the other hand my mother would tell eerie stories about cats and cat owners she had known in her life.  Many times she would come right out and say that she hated cats.  In turn I grew up intensely disliking cats and having a bit of a fear about them.

          My mother used to tell a story about how she almost drowned when she was a girl.  I can also remember riding in the car on a road that followed closely alongside a river and my mother being very afraid.  Sensing her fear, I too became afraid that we might run off the road into the water and drown.  We never went swimming many times when I was a small child so I had little experience with being in any water other than the bathtub.   My father was a very good swimmer, but I did not see him swim very many times.   Later when we moved to San Diego we would often go to the beach, but I would stay away from the water.  An aversion to large areas of water had already been instilled in me.  I actually never learned to swim until I was in college and took swimming as a physical education class.  Even now I am not a good swimmer and haven't been swimming in many years.  Being on a boat can make me very uncomfortable.  I am not excited about the prospect of having to swim.

           Many of my friends learned fix-it skills and craftsmanship from their dads.  My dad was never good at things like that and rarely did such work around the house.  His father had died when my dad was still fairly young so maybe it was partly for that reason that my father didn't acquire those kinds of skills.  Then again his father was a newspaperman and may not have done much in the way of work around the house either.  In any case, what basic skills I acquired I either learned on my own or from friends.  And believe me, I don't know much.  Now I have an unease about doing home repairs and will usually hire somebody to do it for me.   My fearing of making things worse if I do them is justified by some of my own bad past experiences.  Like my dad I am no handyman and it often scares me to think of trying.    

           These are all things I could overcome, but they are also part of who I am and have been.  I have acquired these attributes from my parents and I'm comfortable with it.  Years of habit and hearing the negatives about those things that I fear have made these fears very real for me.   In part it's my parents and now it's part of me.

             Are there fears that you have acquired from one of your parents?    Is there anything that one of your parents greatly feared that you are not at all afraid of?    Have you passed any aversions on to your own children?   If so, did you intend to pass them on?

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