Fear of Fear

This is my first appearance here, I’m usually brimming with confidence because I don’t give a shit! But I gotta admit being on the show with Michael and The Amazing Melvin and these guys is kind of intimidating, I’m downright fearful, and

I was talking about being grateful for overcoming fear… I was thinking about it today and wondered where fear comes from anyway.

We’re born fearless, which is remarkable considering how
we come into this world, you were in this safe, warm comfortable place and then ripped out of it, sometimes with tools, what do they call those things “tongs” I think it is…. and the cold, and the blinding light, and then you get slapped, but still don’t know fear.

We learn fear, we are taught fear.

One of my earliest memories is my dear mother teaching me to say my prayers, and I’m about seven or eight years old

She instructs me to get on my knees and rest my elbows on the bed and make prayer hands, and she says:

“Repeat after me.”
.

And now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray to God my soul to keep.
And I’m obediently preparing what she says verbatim..
If I should die before I wake…
Wait. What?

Ok, Mom… I’m getting ready for bed, and you are telling me that I should pray against the possibility of my dying in my sleep?   Tonight?
I’m fucking seven years old!

Just lying there all night, bug-eyed, looking around to see what kind of doom is impending.

That’s where that monster in the closet, boogie man under the bed bullshit comes from.

And then from then on, the fear arrows just start landing nearby.

Step on a crack, break your mother’s back?

As a kid, you don’t know how dependent you’ll be on your mother, but you’re pretty sure you’re gonna want your mother upright!
And the fear landmines are everywhere.

Through no fault of my own, a black cat crosses my path. Shit!

It never ends…

It’s no wonder I’m snorting coke at fifteen…

It’s bad enough you broke the mirror…
Now you’re fucked for seven years!

My friend Derrick told me his Grampa died at forty. Yeah, a safe landed on him, killing him instantly!
Apparently it wasn’t that uncommon… I’m older than all y’all, but back in the seventies, and even now,  I had no idea why safes were meteorically descending from the sky, crushing random people. I just know if it ever happened, it could happen to me!

You can’t even make a simple mistake without it being described as painful or at least frighteningly embarrassing …. did you hear about Robert? Yeah, he slipped in his own vomit, committed a “faux pas”, it was a real snafu! It was a real dumpster fire! He stepped on his dick, and and, here’s one… He really screwed the pooch! That sounds frightening for all involved!

He made his own bed, and now he’s got to lie in it! – Actually, that doesn’t sound so bad…

And then you get older, and there are so many medical conditions to fear that they reduce them to acronyms, so the things to be afraid of are easier to keep track of!

There’s CPOD, ADD, OCD, SUDs, DDTs, hell! I’d settle for ED so I don’t get STDs!

All the way up to tonight, I was so fearful, Randy had to push me on stage! He said, “Break a leg!” – Do I have to?

And if I’ve done a really good job here. I killed.

Die laughing!