Ramblings: Part Seven

Fear, we all sense it; we all feel it; we all know and hate it. But who can tell me they fear nothing? It is so cliché these days to say we fear the unknown; perhaps we should fear what we actually know because it is so close to us. Fear is what we live with everyday; we can attribute everything to fear (maybe you can’t, but I sure as hell can). I live in fear everyday; fear of the day to come; fear of the days that passed me not knowing who I was or what I would become. I am more afraid of what I can do to myself than what other people can do to me. I have always been curious about the reason that religious persons fear death as much as an agnostic or atheist (actually, maybe they care less about death than a religious person). It seems like the ultimate faith in your god would be to not fear death because you “know” you are going somewhere “better”. What is the nature of death and dying? When is it acceptable to die or let go of someone who seems as if they could drift away at any moment into the never-ending abyss we call death. But why do we fear death? What if perhaps we never knew what death was; how can you fear something that you never knew existed or for that matter what if fear didn’t exist? It must be an instinctual aspect on human life, the same way rabbits “fear” predators. The knowledge of fear and death scare people into irrational thinking and bold takes on life.

At the same time, I often wonder whether it is possible to be truly happy if you don’t know what it feels like to be truly unhappy; I mean to say that people often times believe they are unhappy but in retrospect they just give the appearance of being unhappy (or maybe just want to believe they are unhappy). It is like the placebo effect really, you take a pill to make you feel better about yourself, but it is entirely possible for that pill to have no effect on anything or for that matter to contain any chemical that will “make you happy”. I often look back on my life and try to pinpoint positions in my life where I thought myself to be unhappy or happy; the points where I was at my lowest low or the points where I was at my highest peak. I try to recognize the feelings and intentions that should be associated with happiness and unhappiness, but I can never put my finger on that place in time where I was happy or where I was sad. It seems to me that all the times I felt I was depressed or just all around down about myself, I had no reason to be. When I perceive myself to be happy I question the integrity of that ideal. True happiness must come from things that aren’t intended to make you happy; I mean sure everyone would like to believe that money, love, sex, drugs, etcetera make them happy, but do all those things not just give the illusion of happiness? In the same sense, doesn’t melancholy seemingly come from death, repression, intolerance, and alienation (correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t believe there is a real word for “lack-of-love”).

I wondered many times if these were simple fantasies that we put there by our subconscious; sure we can’t know what our subconscious puts there or doesn’t put there or what the collective unconscious steeps into our simple mindsets, but we can assume the role of “keeper of ideals”. Why be happy when you could be sad? Why be sad when you could be happy? Why be afraid when you could be bold? Why be bold when you could be afraid? Why be alive when you could be dead? Why be dead when you could be alive? These questions will perplex the community for all eternity, but isn’t nice to think about every once in a while? I guess what they say is true, ignorance really is bliss.