Sunday, November 11, 2012

Dealing with fear

I have spent the last several days dealing with my fears. It seems odd to sit here this evening and admit that I am afraid. It is not something a man is supposed to admit out loud except in the waning hours of darkness before dawn brings a battle to be fought. Then, it's okay. Maybe in today's world it brings less of a stigma to admit one's fears. The temptation is to say, "Yes, I am," then make light of it. I intend to, in fact, as this blog goes on, so if the mood shifts jarringly, just go with it. I no longer have to fear the outcome of the national election, but I still fear the actions that might be taken by the various elected. But that is out of my hands. In fact, all the things that I fear, really fear, are things out of my hands, things that remind me that control is an illusion and, as Jim Morison once sang, "the future is uncertain and the end is always near." I fear the end. I fear that when it comes I will have done nothing remarkable or noteworthy or memorable to mark my time on this planet. It is the fate of most of us, that we are remembered fondly only by those closest to us, and our deeds are interred with our bones, as Daniel Webster once said. I fear that there will be no Christmas this year, that our new budget is far too small. I fear I may never again see some people I hold close to my heart, especially ones who live overseas. I fear the snow. These fears have had me down and almost paralyzed for the past few days. I have had distractions, like watching the entire extended edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. When we had enough of Middle Earth we switched to regular TV and found ourselves on Lifetime watching David Hasslehoff as "The Christmas Consultant." It was a total joy and sorrow combined. A few hours before I thought to myself, I fear I will never write anything a tenth as good as the Lord of the Rings. Then I see this 2012 Christmas movie and think, somebody got a heck of a lot of money for writing that screenplay. Okay, not THAT much, to be sure, but certainly more than I make in a year. And my biggest fear awakened in all its horrid glory: It's only mid-November. There's six more weeks of Christmas movies on the docket. What if they take over all network TV? Now that's something way out of my control and really really scary.

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