myrddyn

reflections from the kiddie pool
2002-10-10 22:09:38 (UTC)

Fears


I know I have gone over some or all of this in a previous
entry. I re-tell it here because it is on my mind today,
and I lack the capacity to generate a new thought on which
to write about. If it is something new you are looking
for, maybe tomorrow. I write about this because it is one
of the aspects of my personality of which I am proud, and
to write it down on occasion makes me feel better about
myself. It is also possible I will get to an aspect of
this part of my personality not as thoroughly covered by
similar earlier entries.

Somewhere along the line, as a child, I learned something
about being afraid. I don't know when, or from whom, but
if I ever figure it out I'm going to send them a big thing
of flowers.

The reason is because I have a tremendous aversion to
things I am really afraid of. When I was young, it boiled
down to three things:

1. drowning
2. needles
3. fighting

I'm sure a psychologist or psychiatrist would say there was
more to it than that, but I don't have the luxury of an in-
depth analysis of them. Only the origins of the second one
are plain, that being a shot I had to receive as part of an
emergency procedure related to a tonsillectomy performed on
me when I was pretty young.

Drowning is a funny one, because I have always been in and
around the water. I swam from a young age, my great-
grandmother who lived about 30 minutes away had a house
just a few blocks from the beach and we would spend up to
weeks at a time up there in the summer. I only wish I
could spend more time in the water now.

Physical confrontation, which I generalize from an early
fear of 'fighting', I blame on my father. He worked all
the time, meaning for all intents and purposes my mother
raised me. Between her and my younger sister, it's a
wonder I have any masculine qualities at all. That's been
a tough monkey to live with, because it is symptomatic of a
personality geared towards not causing waves. And almost
every time I have been faced with the even the prospect of
a physical confrontation I have found ways to avoid it.

Now, I am not one to tell anyone that violence solves
problems. That certainly is not an attitude I want to pass
along to a son or daughter. However, every once in a while
a circumstance arises where I wouldn't blame someone for
fighting. Everyone should have the ability to give a good
accounting for themselves should the situation warrant it.

And what is funny is that even though my birthday was on
the tail-end of that of my classmates, over time I became a
relatively big and athletic member of my class. But I
would still always back down, even from guys smaller than
me. You can imagine how much the smaller bullies enjoyed
that. Over my childhood I ended up with a couple
uncontested black eyes from a neighbor and a couple of
times my intense aversion to 'fighting back' almost made me
break down and cry, right in front of whoever the aggressor
was. I don't want to under-emphasize this, in retrospect I
view this as a big problem in my emotional development--I
had no backbone. Kids would tease me and my response would
be to shrink back, rather than verbally engage and let
their words slide off my back. I certainly had the
intelligence to do so.

So to conquer my fear of drowning, I continued to swim. I
was on the swim team all through high school and
could/should have swam in college. One of my regrets, I'm
afraid. Starting at the end of high school, I donated
blood to the red cross fairly consistently all through law
school. Voila, a conquered fear of needles.

Now, Hapkido, and confronting one of my greatest and
longest-undealt-with fears. I don't want to become
a 'tough guy' by any stretch, but it feels good to know
that I have the ability to give a good accounting of myself.

I don't know why I am re-hashing this here and at this
time. This morning I suddenly felt very overwhelmed by
work and life. Being able to take a piece of my life and
say 'see, this part is simple and good,' I think is good
for my sanity.

I also think a lot of times I don't feel in control of my
life. By that I mean both decisions I have made in the
past, and decisions I continue to make. I try not to be
too hard on myself for decisions I made before I knew
better, but there were so many of those whose consequences
contionue on into my present life that it is hard not to
be. After getting married of course life has been about
compromise, but even then . . . I am married to a woman who
needs a man who does not require too much control.

I have a good job, but no good feel for controlling my
professional development. I take what is given to me and
do an adequate, passable job with it. I have no passion
for it, but I look around for what else I could do and it
is all similar enough to what I am doing that there is no
incentive to go.

To that end Hapkido gives me two aspects of control, the
first in controlling the use of my own time and the second
in gaining control of my fears. It gives me a masculine
element to my life, something I think I desperately need
because so often I feel like my life is about pleasing
others.

Maybe my wife would point out all the things I do for
myself. I did the R/C car thing. I spend time on the
computer. I golf.

Well, I have practically given up on the R/C because, like
before, I seem incapable of getting the thing to work.
Sure, I actually got it properly assembled this time, but a
variety of electrical issues have kept me from getting even
a full day's running in.

The computer is something of mine, but at this stage there
really isn't too much more I can do as a hobbyist without
actually turning it into professional development. So to a
large extent I don't view my game-playing, file hosting or
hardware work as having productive value because my skill
set has reached it's saturation point for a hobbyist. I
don't spend nearly as much time on it as I used to.

I would like to get back into the water though. Maybe I'll
give the local Y a call, see what their open swim hours
are. I can hardly describe how it used to feel, beeing in
the water. And it's the only thing that kept me swimming.
Certainly I had enough enemies on politics on the swim
team, particularly because I wouldn't stand up for myself,
that the out-of-water parts were almost not always
enjoyable. But oh, to feel that water flowing by me. To
extend your hand into the water and actually feel it raise
your body up as your hand became a small 'wing' what would
carry your body up on the water just so. Just to float
effortlessly through the water. Those were really the best
times, in the pool. I wish I could show you a picture from
when I was a junior or senior, there is this one picture of
us holding our sectional trophy up and it is the best
physical shape there is a photo record of me being in.

*sigh*, so many thoughts. Maybe I'll have a new thought
tomorrow.




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