Of fear and courage (disguised cowardry)

When I was a kid, people would say I was courageous for climbing up to high places without fear. And even as then, I had this little seed of thought that it wouldn’t be a truly honest act to take that as compliment. It was so easy for me to climb those high trees, I didn’t see anything remarkable about it. As it turns out, it takes no courage to do something you don’t fear.

And that’s a pattern that shows up when I’m looking for pain and managing my own falls. It takes no courage of me to do that as I’m familiar with the place I’m going to. In fact, pain is a crest of mine, and there’s no way I could be saying that just so I could fancy about how totally familiar I am with that. I hide in pain. To feel isolated and secluded isn’t so painful as it’s just well-known enough for me to know it holds no death threat.

But even if I’m doing that by facing my own primal fears, somehow they don’t come out easily for a fight just because I called them. They’re as if locked, as if my mind was wise enough not to let such contend happen. Maybe I just need to be insistent, and look for ways to invoke them.