Are You Quaking in Your Boots?

One of our beloved promises alleges that "fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us." This seems highly improbable to most of us. This is a big matzoh ball to swallow. Lack of fear? No more fear? I'm all about the fear. If you take the fear out of my life I'd deflate like a helium balloon. I'd disintegrate into a dry, powdery dust that would blow away in the wind.



I have spent years and years nurturing and feeding every possible kind of fear, anxiety, and unease and am actually uncomfortable with the idea of giving it up. Alcoholics don't like change. I prefer sitting in boiling hot sewage to getting up and going somewhere else. I'm kind of used to the sewage smell and the toxic vapors. My skin has toughened up and the wounds have scabbed over. I'm worried that I may be a little chilly if I get up. I've convinced myself that I like the sewage life. Anybody can sit in a warm tub of clean water -- it takes a tough son of a bitch to handle hot sewage.


While I have never been able to eliminate all of the fear in my life, I have amped down the volume. I am not overwhelmed with fear. I'm underwhelmed with it, maybe, but it isn't the master of my reality any more. Sure, I have to do battle with the occasional wave of apprehension or agitation. I have qualms. I sink into a blue funk of dismay, dread, and panic. I get the creeps and the cold shivers.

But it's a lot, lot better than it used to be.