One of my favourite things to ask people is what they're afraid of.
Personally, I think it's one of the best questions because it tells so much. Not necessarily the average, boring fears (spiders, dark, rapists)...all of which are a little unnerving, true, but they're sort of...expected. I like hearing what people are really afraid of. The things that keep them up at night...the nightmares, the subconscious fears, the worst case scenarios. The things that shape the way we live our day-to-day lives, and the things we'll do just about anything to avoid.
And the million times I've asked this question, I've gotten just about as many varied responses. But they all seem to be variations on the same themes:
-fear of losing those you love
-fear of losing yourself
-fear of losing
-fear of weaknesses being exploited
-fear of love
-fear of having no love
-fear of evil
-fear of meaninglessness living
-fear of never being successful
-fear of being wrong
-fear of others having a low opinion of you
-fear of oneself
-fear of being alone
-fear of one's fears being exposed (ironic, under the circumstances.)
And all of these, I think, are valid. After all, the whole reason we have things that we're afraid of is because we have things that matter to us...which is key, in this whole process called life.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that I have way too many fears. Or things that just make me jumpy and nervous in general. It's embrarrassing most of the time. My boyfriend (oh yeah, I have one of those by the way...he's neat) tends to get a kick out of taking any and all opportunities that present themselves to scare me a little bit. I still like him a whole bunch, but I'm sincerely worried that one of these days I'm actually going to pee myself or something. Being jumpy is kind of weirdly amusing and potentially endearing, but there is nothing endearing about wetting your pants unless you're a baby or a significantly elderly person. So I'd prefer that it never happens.
TMI? Probably. Sorry.
Anyway, currently, my most relevant/front-of-mind fear is of being too happy. I don't think it's all that uncommon of a fear, really. It makes sense because, as can be witnessed in so many scenarios, trusting in one's own happiness is often the time when things fall apart. It's true in literature, it's true in life: the time when things are stable is always just before they become unstable. Therefore, I have a hard time really trusting my happiness and fully being in the moment because I'm too caught up in trying to capture it before it goes away. Which hints to an underlying fear of losing it all. And while I know you sometimes have to just be where you are, and take it in, and enjoy it, there's always sort of that fear in the background. I'm working on banishing it, because it's not a significantly enjoyable phenomenon.
I'm completely tired, but I wanted to put this up before I go to bed in order to fulfill New Years resolution of the day. Night night, world.
I've got some sorta fear of living, which might sound pretty ackward and inmmature,and fear of failing at fullfilling the "average accepted people standars" or at least where i wanna be accepted.
ReplyDeletelow self-steem maybe? i thought i was already over this, but while talking about it - some passages from my life when being a kid - few days ago, i couldn't hold it back and cried which surprised me.