Tag: fear

Re: Monster

We are in a period of history where monsters appear around every corner. I like reading the newspaper to my blind 97 year old special mom but lately I’m finding myself censoring the content because the reports trouble her so much. Even mild-mannered folks like me are peppering our conversations with tales of monstrous behaviour. A recent New York Times crossword had a single word clue: Boogeyman. The correct answer was a four letter word: Fear.

There are monsters that reside within us and monsters we fear from without. A powerful new film of the fictional character Frankenstein focuses on The Bride! (his). The director skillfully helped me think of Franky resulting from the cruelty of humanity: A product of society patching together the pieces that create deviant behaviour. Therefore there is no blaming him when he seeks some companionship after 100 years alone. Being a fan of film, I’ve watched many representations of the evil that lies within. One of my regrets is calling my sister, in a moment of rage, a Bad Seed, after the movie of the same name. Who’s the monster now eh?

News media tends to label killers, ‘monsters’. I wonder how that human got to the place where committing murder is a valid option. I don’t believe in Damien-like individuals being born evil. Somewhere along the maturity spectrum the individual has morphed into a manipulator of horrid proportions. Obsession may lie at the root of anti-social behaviours. We’ve given The Donald a chance to be in charge of the world’s most powerful nation. How? He’s not a quietly calculating Norman Bates, yet he is just as creepy, and more deadly. 

As far as I know, there isn’t a DNA marker for evil. Despite all the work from psychologists there isn’t a definitive profile, or stereotypical pattern that would help a civilization unmask a monster, before an awful event. Parents often get blamed for abhorrent behaviour in their children. A mass shooting, by a late-adolescent in British Columbia, created a demand for a political enquiry into how such a thing could happen in peaceful, gun-regulated Canada. Government neglect, miscommunication, internet abuse, an intolerant community, and even Artificially Intelligent programming are being labelled as the monsters of the day in quiet Tumbler Ridge.

People like to watch horror movies to feel a fear reaction. Halloween continues to be a popular North American holiday for children to dress up as monsters (or their do-good adversaries). A current costume favourite for my granddaughter is to dress-up as one of the Kpop Demon Hunters, an update from my niece’s favourite Buffy the Vampire Slayer. My long dead mother used to love greasing her hair back, donning a cape, and placing fake fangs in her mouth, to scare children knocking on our door for treats. I never saw the attraction of fear and pleasure coinciding.

Monsters continue to be an imaginary fascination for young and old alike, so it puzzles me why we are so surprised when real monsters show up at our doorstep.

Re: Anxiety

A week ago, I had an episode of high anxiety. It woke me up; A feeling of dread. There was nothing imminently dangerous. I lay still, controlling my breathing until I fell back to sleep. And now, just last night, my bride comforted me in the dark when I woke her with a vocal exclamation loud enough to wake the neighbourhood. I had had a feeling of someone, a body, falling on me. My voice gave a “Huh!”grunt. It was an affront!

When does worry merge with the high traffic lane of anxiety? I can be fretful but I’m not necessarily anxious. With all the stressors in this present time it is easy to be filled with angst. Yet that is what makes a feeling of panic so confounding: When there is no real monster at the door it feels stupid for being fearful. Feeling threatened is different from being threatened. I have no reticence to talk about the fear within because feeling scared is real. Any counsellor will tell you that if you feel it then it exists. Trouble is you can’t grab this particular monster and wrestle it to the ground.

There is debate in our community over a school program allowing police to be present, within the halls of learning, serving as liaison officers. Such programs have been in existence before and are still active in other municipalities. The trouble is that many students are learning from other sources that police officers are not to be trusted. Media continually has news of armed forces going beyond the notion of serving and protecting. The appearance of an authoritative state makes me and others nervous. Thus, the anxiety in the school community is justified. We all have a role to play in educating children how to interact confidently with strangers. It’s not the job of someone wearing a badge, a protective vest and carrying a gun. That’s not a comforting presence, it’s intimidating.

Protesters and police. Liberals and Conservatives. Workers and Rich Folk. We are a class society and school has been cancelled. We have trouble getting useful information because we are bombarded with manufactured truth. Science and Education are no longer respected. Everyone is choosing a slogan and getting it tattooed on their skin or printed on an item of clothing. Our self labelling lowers the anxiety level because now we feel defined and less alone with our thoughts of impending doom. Still, trying to decide which side you’re on or who to vote for or where to shop creates tension that we may be taking for granted.

There are valid reasons to be a nervous Nellie or Norman in our stratified culture. Our technology puts us all up close and personal to global struggles. On a good day, a day when all things seem smoothly running, that’s sometimes the day when I suddenly feel surrounded by doubt, then doubt feeds worry and worry brings anxiety. I’m internalizing a vast amount of shared grief.

Good thing I have someone to lean on, when I’m not strong.

Re: Death

I’ve been thinking about death lately. Daily COVID19 updates will do that to a person. It isn’t the fear of death that has gotten to me, but the inevitability of it. Recently I dreamt of my childhood apartment, home to four: I walked about the small rooms.  Bedding was in a tumble, wiring was exposed. I called out for my parents and sister. I woke with a start. 

Today, I am the sole survivor. When will the grim reaper come for me, like in Ingmar Bergman’s classic film, The Seventh Seal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtkFei4wRjE

It’s natural to be uncomfortable with the subject of death. During my years as an elementary school counsellor I listened carefully to many children who had questions about life and death. I participated in death and dying workshops at Kings College at Western University in London, Ontario. My experience led me to offer sessions on grief with members of my United Church congregation. During an ‘Art Healing’ afternoon, one young fellow captured a positive note by making a button with his slogan, ‘Death is Interesting’.

Film producers deal with death in a variety of ways. Some confront it with a collage of blood spattered bodies, bullets flying and body count so disproportionately high that viewers soon become desensitized to dead people. Death can be treated comedically, like in this bizarre feature starring Hollywood’s leading lady of drama, Meryl Streep. 

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi3075390233?playlistId=tt0104070&ref_=tt_ov_vi

Speaking of zombies! The undead hold a special place in the imagination of many people. I don’t share that fascination but I can appreciate the walking dead as an undying metaphor for racial discrimination. I admit to a curiosity for death whenever it has appeared in my life. I’ve witnessed several people die. I’ve only had a death wish once and luckily was clutched from the jaws of death. I’ve seen five productions of the play, Death of a Salesman and watched Dead Poet’s Society at least six times. Once, I took a death defying leap off a waterfall, diving into a small natural pool many metres below. I’ve also tempted an early demise by eating a serving of Death by Chocolate. I’ve had my share of la petite mort, a French term for orgasm, relating to the notion that climax provides a loss of consciousness equivalent to a small death.

The quote, “Nothing is certain except death and taxes.” is attributed to Ben Franklin. Death is clearly a part of life. I appreciate cultures that integrate that reality into their social observations.The Aztecs had Death Day festivals that have been continued by Mexicans and other cultures as The Day of the Dead or Día de Muertos. The belief that the departed are never really far from us is comforting. Two wonderful animated feature films that explore this healthy view of death are; The Book of Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCSljmwNs_U 

Coco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_5DD9G89rI .

Death need not be something to fear.

Re: Motive

Motive is a cool word that can grow with the addition of syllables. Motive, a noun, can blossom into Motivate, a verb, then growing again to Motivation to become Motivational. It’s fun to see how flexible a word can be with a prefix or suffix. Like LEGO but with letters! So many different permutations eh?

My mother used to work for a busy private detective in Toronto. She picked up on some of the undercover language at the time; “That sounds like their MO. Just give me the facts. I wonder what their motive is.” It was one of many reasons I felt fear and love for my mom. She would often use her training and natural instinct to find out a reason behind my sister’s or my misbehaviour. We resented it. “You don’t know me!” I can still hear my sister yell after being accused, analyzed and sentenced almost in a single breath by our mother in a rush of anger. I’ve long past given up trying to sleuth out someone’s motive for a particular behaviour.

If we work at it we can come to know ourselves. I’ve concluded my own prime motivators are Fear and Love. Burrowing down into those two headings I find I can relate all my motivation to either Waste, Cost or Loss. Fearful mode is not where I wish to spend a lot of my time, yet fear of losing things makes me put things away carefully and therefore like all OCD individuals I get joy, pleasure, even loving feelings when I have ordered my world.

Some motivational speakers are making money helping us reduce, or cope with loss. FOMO (fear of missing out) is an acronym I just recently learned. If you feel FOMO you may become motivated to be involved. You might be worried about your time being squandered. No one wants to lose time when there is only one lifetime to live. When I graduated from University I was strongly motivated to get a job. I had met a woman I wanted to start having kids with and that was going to cost money, lots of it. Once I got a job I enjoyed the paycheques. I loved earning money and supporting my growing family. In the early days of employment I was fearful that I would lose my job.

Lately it’s Waste that has become a motivating force in my life. I’m motivated out of love for the planet to use less, waste less and make my efforts more kind, more respectful. I make servers in restaurants smile when I ask for a doggy bag. I used to do that because of the money I had spent, now it’s more about the thought of food being thrown out that motivates my request. Cost doesn’t urge me to action like it once did; I feel confident I can get by. I’ve seen and felt the loss of loved ones and precious things so I am less motivated to worry about this inevitability.

Perhaps wasting less can become a more universal motive for saving our precious planet. We can always hope.

Re: Phobia

The word Phobia is actually a suffix that has morphed into a word through common usage. You might say someone is phobic if they are demonstrating anxiety. A person may tell you they have a phobia to something. Both Phobia and Phobic can be words used to exaggerate the fear that someone feels. Lucy tries to explain phobias in this scene from A Charlie Brown Christmas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8SDztycKwY

I don’t like to admit I’m fearful. That’s like showing your hand in a card game. My fears don’t tend to limit me in the pursuit of a fulfilling life. I believe that’s where phobias come in: When your fears direct you to stop normal functions. I’ll admit to feeling discomfort over certain things that, in the extreme, might be phobias. For example: I don’t enjoy crowds (enochlophobia), I like to be inside before dark (noctiphobia), I avoid tight spaces (claustrophobia). The latter fear I can trace back to a bizarre game my mom and dad used to inflict on me when I was very young. When I asked to jump into their bed on a weekend morning they would wedge me with their elbows between their bodies so I couldn’t escape. Tough to know why I would ever come back for more of that but to this day it’s a challenge for me to stand in a packed subway car.

We have hired someone to renovate our bathroom. The workers’ first day on the job was a highly anxious time for me. Despite being confident about the decision to go ahead with this project, the noise and numbers of people involved produced a fear of the future reaction. What will they find behind the walls? Will they break anything important? Is it going to cost me more than budgeted? I know I’m not alone when it comes to Chronophobia, especially in the Anthropocene Age. It seems hard to look positively to the coming days in our current climate, political or otherwise.

The politics of fear cannot help us make good decisions yet this is the currency used by many to buy our vote. Xenophobia is a word that is being used to legitimize racist statements and activities. Our cave dwelling relatives had reason to fear others. In our modern world we need others, we need the collective, we need diversity, if we are to continue to survive as a species.

The antonym of Phobic is Phile. I’d rather promote the latter as a way to describe my positive nature. I love books, so I am a Bibliophile. I appreciate the artistry in clocks, so I am a Chronometrophile. I thoroughly enjoy film so I call myself a Cinephile. I’m proud of my heritage despite its flaws so I am an Anglophile.

There are just as many Phobias as there are Philes. Two sides of the same coin so to speak. We must find balance yet when our fears dominate let’s hope there is someone to watch over us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y92LxyuNFZ0