Fearlessness

This weekend, I've been pondering a flyer I got from Omega Institutue, where I've taken some nice, and some stupid, seminars. They're running a weekend conference in March on "Being Fearless." They've got quotes sprinkled throughout the flyer and some of them are making me think about the things I fear and about the ways in which I've relied upon fear throughout my life.

The first quote, from Tagore, says: "Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless when facing them." My reaction is that this is something Bush and his rubes could profit from hearing. It seems that quite a few Americans are so fearful of an event that will quite likely never happen to them that they're willing to give up any freedom Bush cares to name. Of course, it's foolish to pray to be sheltered from dangers. It's a dangerous world. We can't control that. We can control how much of our lives we surrender to fear.

Of course, I always thought that the Bene Gesserit had the best thing to say about fear: It's the mind-killer. When you're afraid, you're not thinking clearly. You're not reacting from a postion of strength nor are you able to perceive the situation from any point of view other than your fear. Fear is, as the Bene Gesserit continued, the little death. Cowards, we all know, die a thousand deaths, heroes and heroines, only once.

Another quote is from Byron Katie: "Reality is always kinder than the story we tell about it." In my experience, generally true. I was raised by a father who "catastrophized" everything. If you got a C in Math, you were going to grow up impoverished and miserable. I've gotten better, but I can still convince myself that a hangnail will turn into cancer or that one bad ruling from a judge means I'm going to lose the whole case, get fired, lose my house, be a bag lady . . . But reality is generally not that bad. And, the Saudis who flew into the Pentagon and WTC were monsters, but it didn't mean that the whole world hated us or that we had to go to war with Iraq. The reality wasn't as bad as the story Bush told about it.

A third quote from that great witch Erica Jong: "Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame." Well, yes and no. I can take my life in my own hands all I want, and it won't change the bad air I breathe or the economy that is designed to screw women. The illusion that we can control everything is dangerous. It leads to self-blame. Last night, I had dinner with some wonderful folks. It was one of "those" dinners -- amazing food, sparkling conversation, friendship. Two women there were African American and one was decrying affirmative action. She wanted, she said, to earn what she got. The other one pointed out to her that she'd have to work twice as hard as George Bush ever worked in order to have half as much. At some point, blaming yourself is counter productive. But, we like it because it gives us a sense of control, the illsuion that, this year, if we just work harder, we can control everything. We can't. Any more than Bush can prevent terrorism if he just takes away enough of our freedoms.

So, way too long a post. I'll close with one of my great loves, the poet Jelaluddin Rumi: "Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking." May it be so for me. May it be so for you. May it be so for my beloved country.