Sunday, January 7, 2007 8:18 PM
This is a rant about fear. Strap a two by four to your ass, we're going in.

Ok, chickies, tonight gather round the pot bellied stove as the wind sweeps the darkness close, and light contracts to just the world of these words because tonight we are telling the scary story. If you read what I will write tonight, and if you believe what you read, you will die. There is no way to see the story unfold, to understand the premise and the denouement and escape death, for tonight little chickies, as the candles flicker around me, I will tell you the end of your story.
Ssshhh.
Here it is.

You are dying.

Some may die tonight? You? How do you feel? Some of you may hold on a bit longer, some years and years, but careful now, don't breathe, and listen close in this darkened room for you will bring death too close now. Maybe you are tonight's death's delight. How do you feel. Breathe it in, your death, my death. I'm sorry to tell you this, and many of you already knew, we are dying you and I. Every child you love, every pet you own, every parent, sibling, friend and lover, all are going to die, starting tonight, and death will continue to every one of you and I are dead.

Oh, you knew that? Oh, that's not scary? Then why do you live every minute of your life like death is perched on your shoulder?

My mother used to intone to me, because she could see that I was, and am, a fearful twit, “a coward dies a thousand deaths, a hero dies but one.”

Fear is the voice that cautions us against living. Oh I know, it keeps us from stepping off the cliff just to see how the fall would feel, and it lets us learn and charge ourselves against unknown dangers that are similar to things that hurt us before. But usually what does fear do?

It saves us. It saves from hurt, from repeating dangerous actions. Fear makes us so safe that finally, we are sure, that if we make no mistakes and fear EVERYTHING, then we will not die, we will not be hurt and nothing bad will befall us. Do you believe that? Do you believe that you will not die, your heart will never be broken again, that you won't experience loss? And if those things happen to you, do you promise to be guilty, because obviously you didn't fear enough. If you had prepared and feared enough, you would have prevented the pain of whatever will occur, from occurring and you wouldn't hurt.

I'm sorry chickies, life is a vibration of both the pleasant and unpleasant, the painful and the sublime, the orgasm is the other swing from painful vomiting, and your fear. Ah yes, your fear, it must be balanced by your joy. (You knew there had to be answer to the fear, right? - but are we still going to die? Yes).

Mostly fear makes our world small by making our choices small. And aren't you in your heart of hearts really sure that the so called braver people around you are just really reacting to a greater fear, that in running from the fire inside themselves that is killing them, they instead take stupid, stupid risks? They wouldn't do this if they were normal like you; like me? What if you are wrong about that? What if in doing things that we fear, we are freed, no imprisoned. What if our fear/joy pendulum is stuck on the fear side?.

Imagine a world in which every change is negative. You do, you do all day, so do it now. Imagine you were just born, laying wet, and they cut the cord and oh mister it is all fucking downhill from here. There is no good change and no change is good and no change means no fear. So you never taste your mother's milk, and you never breathe the ocean air, and you never feel your hand close around your cock knowing that in seconds it will be buried to the hilt in that beautiful woman who has commandeered every nerve ending in your body. You will never have children, you will never see your grandchild smile and love you like no love before or since. You will never get the chance to make painful sacrifice for those you love and understand the joy of that sacrifice, and how you never stood so tall, and how your grandchild saves you and not the other way around. You will not taste chocolate or ice cream, you will not meet new friends. You will not because you are afraid to take that first breath, because it is change coming. Fear has you. Isn't that absurd? You did take it, you did breathe, you were a insane fucking warrior with nothing to go on and you just leaned back and yahoo bonzai cowboyed it right into this life. So when did you we become such wimps?If you watch enough TV, day after day. If you read enough anecdotal news stories, if you hate others the way you often hate yourself, then you will achieve it. You will wish you were never born. You will hope you don't lose your job and you will finally say, “I cannot imagine this any other way.” Now turn and say that the memory of how you were at birth. Are you still bonzai cowboy?
So instead, you will medicate the pain away, you will counsel until your last dollar is gone, but you and I cannot cannot, must not let FEAR make our decisions. There is no medication, counseling or hobby to kill fear. There is no religious belief that will save you. You only need courage to let yourself be afraid, to cry because you are scared. BUT, your bonzai cowboy, the best of you, only knows forward with courage, to eat life in the Mayan tradition. Fear is a shadow on the wall that deserves a glance and NO more. There are signposts all around us for “thin ice.” But few that say, “balls to the wall fun – this way!” Fear is death. I read somewhere on someone's tag line to a post. At death's door I will slide sideways with all four tires blown, the engine smoking, and the steering shot. Fucking - Aye!

Here is the deal I make with you tonight on this dark evening. I give you that you will only, no matter how many times you are scared, lonely, desperate, humiliated, made foolish, made ill, guilty or in pain, I promise you that you will only die once. Just once. So, perhaps if you are sure that tonight is not the night, you might make a risk, take a deal with yourself and keep it. Know that, at least maybe tonight, you are free from fear. You can do whatever you want. You can risk a new action, a new though, a new position. You can walk out the door, you can stay, but your choice is one then of a free man, a free woman. You can go to work or no. But you will not die tonight chickies. It's a good bet, take it.

“What the hell is he going on about Martha?” Comes a shout from just outside the glow of the candles and I hear the old toilet flush.
“I don't know Frank, I think he's saying I should leave you, you old fart!”

What does prompt such purple putrescent prose this January weekend?. Simple, this weekend was a weekend to teach me a lesson about leaning on the fear button with the end of the world stuff. You know, peak oil, ad nauseam.

Many of you know that I had a pretty amazing change of point of view last year here in the desert when after I lost my cat and searched endlessly, my heart bruised and worn from time and abuse I had a 3 second experience of some import. I had a little girl, 8 years old come by me in the City Bus Cafe and stop as I talked with Ed Foster and Ed Moore and Rich Hill about important political bullshit of the day, my arms crossed across my chest, leaning forward on my knees, making a point. And I felt fine. It was a good blue desert day, and I had healed up and I was FINE. She stopped stared at me and crawled into my lap, looked into my eyes and then spun around got off and continued on her way. As she had pushed off from my lap, my heart broke and tears began rolling down my face. Not quite the man island I had imagined myself to be, my heart woke up. Maybe I was just tired, but it was a turning point in my life in many ways.
This weekend was a planned trip for this little girl's birthday. I took her to the movies and to play games at a game room. I did that, and I was recovering from my cold, but what blew me away was how normal it was, and not transcendental, there was no further touch from the heavens to my heart. She was a delightful, bright nine year old girl and wore me out in about 5 hours of games, movies and food. That special moment from the past was gone and that was done. I felt an ending to it, which made me sad and happy at the same time. Some things end and other begin. In preparing for the trip, close friends here cautioned me about how to act, being a OLD MAN with a 9 year old girl in tow, and HOW IT MIGHT LOOK, etc. I was caught flat footed, and for a while it poisoned the day for me. I realized as the normal day progressed, that my friends had given me the gift of fear as each of us do for ourselves and others, every day.

Do you remember being in that bassinet when the world was yours to make and break and make again. A saying I hear often that I love is “it is all good.” IT really is. Fear and Joy, Passion and all the other emotions are the thing of it, the color in the fabric of life. I went ahead and enjoyed my day, had a valuable lesson about serendipity not repeating itself at my command, and I remembered that what I felt when my friends gave me the gift of fear for a moment. Perhaps it is what you have been getting from me when I beseeched you to read my blog, and especially Ran Prieur's article, “The Fall.” I apologize to you all. I have been leaning on fear and preparation when what we should talk about it the joy of getting to be part of the new future that is coming, a future where you count for something. A future in what you do now matters to those you love and wish well. Perhaps we will live long enough to create a new life where we take risks, succeed, fail but try again. I imagine that we will build whatever comes together by what we EXPECT, what we ACCEPT, and by our own creativity if TV has not killed every brain cell entirely.

Oh, and I can't help myself, because, well, you know me, kill your fucking TV. Shut it off. It is the pipe of fear and nonsense directly and indirectly making you fear everything around you. Ever notice that there are always news reports about people being busted doing the SAME things you do? Speeding, cheating on your taxes, paying a prostitute (do they arrest you for NOT paying the prostitute?), cheating on your spouse, stealing from the church. OH my god, they've got your number! Hah, they've got everybody's number. The society runs on rules that NO one follows and we accept random culling of ourselves (oh please let it be my neighbor), and we play the odds, a slidey slope of risk based morality. Hell we are all in Las Vegas rolling craps. Jeez, will your roommate find you masturbating in your room when you should be watching Dr. Phil, getting WELL - AJUSTED?

I give you this too. 1. You will die. 2. You are not doing anything that hasn't been done before. 3. If you do something verey bad to someone I love, I will hunt you down and kill you, so don't waste time being guilty, BE WHO YOU ARE. What if, oh god, what if you LIKE YOURSELF! What if you don't want to work at work. Then all of civilization would fall apart. Hmmn, wait, it is anyway. Something to think about as the empire sits on the edge of the abyss, isn't it?

Everyone on the list. I love you, that is why you are on the list. Weather cancer, stroke, or that little old blind lady driving the school bus, something has your number. Remember the fear fuckers can only kill you once, so really, party on free chickens!

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