Avery Walker, managing editor of Raw Story, asks in a column, But, What Are You Frightened of Today?
I’d like to take this opportunity (and I generally do as I like,) to ask you a very important question: What frightens you? I don’t mean what methods of death are least appealing. I mean, what scares you? I know that in these dark days, when any chicken dinner could be your last, and Karl Rove stalks freely through the shadows, it’s difficult to go beyond the obvious, but please give it a shot. Fear defines so very much of what we do, and as a result, a large portion of who we are.
I’ve always been a fan of horror. I know that style snobs turn their nose up at the genre, but since I’m personally frightened by closed minds, that only serves to enhance my experience. Other people, of course, are simply too in tune to their own fears to give a toss about imaginary ones. Some have been rendered so sensitive just by daily life that they cannot bear to subject themselves to make-believe thrillers. I’ve used public transportation; I can relate. I’d like to think that all of my readers join with me in fearing those so sheltered that even a flash of plastic fangs projected on celluloid is disturbing to their sensibilities. So, let’s proceed for a moment on the assumption that nothing is so telling of a people as the fears they share.
For all of my love of horror, what truly frightens me is not ghosts – I go on ghost hunts with a gleam in my eye – or personal danger – I’ve had enough guns pointed at me to know I tend to get highly alert rather than frightened in such situations.
No, what truly frightens me is the extremely mundane, ordinary dangers that might face my children.
I fear leaving the basement door open while downstairs doing the laundry even though it can be awkward to open the door while holding a full laundry basket on the narrow landing. I have a morbid fear of my almost 2 year old falling down the stairs. I fear the treehouse I built them for the same reason though I tried to make it as safe as possible. I fret about the trap door and remind them to close it when they are above, but not to close it when someone might be climbing up. I find myself holding back words though out of fear of stifling their fun and I hover like a Secret Service agent when they’re on the monkey bars at the playground.
I cannot imagine anything more awful, more nightmarish, more torturous than losing a child.
Yet for all my fear I try to be mindful of their need to grow and have independence and develop.
Being a parent is more scary than any vampires.
There is nothing better than holding them close. No treasure, no hedonistic pleasure, nothing can compare to the joy they bring. I just want to hold them and keep them safe and I imagine that is how just about all parents around the world are.
So count me in the coalition against the harming of children.
But I think Hunter’s diary broke my heart.
Carnaki: missed that diary. could you put a link to it? I would rally like to read it.
Thanks!
That was really , and not rally. 🙂
the link is at the end of the diary </whisper>
🙂
Now that is an understatement. (Today is Diana’s birthday, cooking, reading the diary in between, watching Bridget Jones)
How could I have missed that?
Well, thank you for the link 🙂
pssssst . . . I too didn’t realize that Hunter’s diary was linked at the end of Carnacki’s, and I appreciated your request for a link.
(Just wanted to mention that so you wouldn’t feel alone in carrying the burden of shame ;^)
Good day!
After reading Hunter’s diary I have a fear of seeing another burned child running down the road…like Vietnam all over again.
On a daily basis – I fear for my grand children not knowing freedom of speech and freedom of choice.
I can conquer my fears of flying and heights and snakes.
This administration terrifies me – literally – on a daily basis. The blind followers of this administration terrify me…that they will follow orders without thinking.
I have lived an improbably long time already, but all over the world, there are young people, children (half of whom are slaves).
Lately, when I see a child, or a young person, I feel sadness and fear, sadness for all the things they will never know, all the beauties of the world, of life, flowers, mountains, carburetors, embroidery, music, art, falling in love, maybe raising a family, yes, growing old with the one to whom one has given one’s heart (who mysteriously does not grow old), alternately spoiling and embarrassing one’s descendants in public, and fear that no matter what the parents of the most fortunate and privileged and powerful of those children do, even if they changed their minds tomorrow, that it would still be too late.
At least not for them.
It is probably too late for the world to return to any semblance of the state that it may have been in at any given time in the past. That is the nature of change, and time. But I have no illusions that, one way or another, it will continue to go on long after we’re gone.
And the children growing up now will experience their own happiness. Their own fulfillment. They will make their own path, one way or another, even if that path does not mirror yours or mine in the slightest.
To fear for what incarnation those experiences will take is to pre-judge those experiences as inferior to yours.
You don’t fear for them; you fear that a time gone by is gone for good.
I don’t mean that to sound biting or harsh; that’s just my view. And I know you won’t take any offense from a whippersnapper like me 🙂
Even an adulthood in a cave.
then it happens. All we can do is our best to prevent it.
To fear it gives its possibility more credence than I’m willing to give it.
Fearing what will come is a surefire way to have a shitty time in the present. Realizing that the possibility is there, however, is a good way to prevent and prepare.
ej, you’re pretty smart for a young whippersnapper…I was just going to comment about not letting our fears of where we are heading take away from any good times in the present. I’m not naive about the state of the world, but I also want to have some happiness in my life, with my kids.
After all, what’s the point of trying to save a world you’re not having fun in anyway?
As Ben and Jerry would say: If not’s fun, why do it?
is to enjoy every day. There is an old saying about living every day as if you had another hundred years ahead of you, and at the same time if it were your last day.
You can only control what you do, whether you choose to harm, or help, whether you will hate or tolerate.
You can teach your children, you can hope that your example may influence others, but that’s about it.
If you can manage, when that last moment comes, to know that you followed your heart and your conscience, you will have won. And if that moment happens to catch you laughing, you will have won the Power Ball 😉
“living an improbably long time” mean you survived to age 18?
survived to the age of 18 are referred to as “my new ones.”
Carnacki, When I opened this up I had every intention of writing a snarky remark. After I read your post I can honestly say that I know exactly how you feel. As the father of a 6 year old boy, I can’t imagine the loss of a child. It must truly be a terrible thing.
The loss of a child, even when they are adults, is a pain without equal. Your heart is ripped from you, quick and ruthless, and you want to stop living as well.
It takes time but the pain only comes back occasionally. After 9 years memories are sometimes ruthless, sometimes bittersweet, sometimes funny.
Having experienced the loss of a child in our house we fear the day to day destruction of children’s freedoms and joys. To live in a daily world of oppression for the children is now more terrifying to us than losing another child.
Sorry for the gloom…it took me a while to work through this and I felt someone should talk about the loss of a child.
Nothing in this world scares me as much as losing one of my children, and I can tell you that it doesn’t get easier as they grow up and mature. The dangers are different now. I don’t fear the stairs now, or choking on a penny, or darting out into the street. I fear that my daughter will trust the wrong man to help her change a tire. I fear that my new driver will make a deadly mistake at 65 mph. I fear that some homocidal teenager will shoot up my sons’ school. I fear that my son who is a bartender will break up a fight and get knifed.
I actually long for the days when I could simply watch them every single minute to ensure their safety.
That I will not hear the guidance whispered from my conscience/my heart/my soul…
And that when I do, I will hesitate.
And the irony is that fear itself can keep me from hearing those messages. Fear is LOUD.
and I had a husband I was quite capable of imagining all kinds of horrible scenarios happening to them, from car accidents to kidnappings to muggings to rape (daughters). Now my fears are different but still in the category of something happening outside of my control. I fear getting some ailment that would leave me at the mercy of doctors and hospitals. I watched real life happen when my husband had leukemia. Yuck – talk about totally out of our control! My daughter’s Grandmother in law was disoriented, totally halucinatory and her teeth were falling out before she was seen by a new doctor who determined that one of her meds was causing a lot of the problems. And that she, after years of complaining of pain, really had reason to complain as she has some disk compression in her back.
So, just like getting an incompetent government, I fear getting an incompetent doctor and being totally out of control!
I’m in the coalition too, Carnacki. The thought of the aftermath of WP’s usage is horrifying, whether it’s young or old skin.
I’m starting to understand what the weather underground felt, and why they did what they did, and I’m afraid of the conclusions I may come to before this nightmare ends. I fear for the twisted beast America has become. I fear that I have stared into its sick soul for too long, and I can feel the rage and hate building inside me. I fear what I may become.
In addition to the eight-legged creatures who are often called bugs but are not and shall not be named by me and phobia of which thank you, I do NOT want to be treated for even though I know such treatment is effective, I fear:
I fear the loss of the children we are already losing. Right here. Every day, I see children who are sent to school without breakfast, maybe with a few coins to buy junk food on the way to school. Children whose parents drop them off at school at 6am to fend for themselves until the building opens, and then come back for them well after dark. Children whose parents do not get them eyeglasses until their rods and cones start shutting down from lack of stimulation. Children whose parents keep a gun at home and think their kids don’t know where it is hidden. Children whose parents make meth at home. Children whose parents buy them any article of clothing they want, but who will not come to school for a conference. Children whose parents sign a form claiming religious exceptions to immunizations rather than take the effort to take their child for shots. Children who are born horribly alcohol exposed. Children who have high levels of lead in their system because two mutually hostile local bureaucrats refused to let the other take credit for a $12 million dollar testing program, so the money gets sent back to Washington. Children whose parents let them choose whether or not to come to school each day. Children whose parents let them come to school dressed like whores. Children who are taught by teachers who hate kids. Children who are taught by teachers who have taught the same way since the day they began teaching in 1965. Children who are disciplined exclusively by being hit, who are therefore out of control unless the get hitting as discipline in all other situations. Children who have been taught to value not doing well in school. Children who have been taught to believe that everyone is on the take, that all cheat and steal, and that this is how the world works.Children who have no sense of community, who have been taught to distrust anyone who is not like them. Children who have been thrown away by their parents,to be feral, or to be raised by surrogates.
I fear these children when they grow up.
Oh dear, Carnacki, I have ranted, and too much. Mea culpa!
Thanks for this Kidspeak!!
Since I don’t have any children, my lot in life has been to try my best to care for other people’s children. And the things of which you speak are what frightens me as well.
Also, I have been saving pictures from RubDMC’s compilation of diaries that so powerfully demonstrate the effect of this criminal war on the children of Iraq. This frightens me not only for them, but for what it will mean for our children’s future as well.
Me too, NL. Thank YOU. I’m going to save the pictures too, thanks to your mentioning it earlier. I want to show them to my students.
Perhaps you actually have a few million kids. Yes, the right wing tells us that kids are supposed to be under the purview of their parents alone. None of this interference by government do-gooders (unless belonging to a church, of course). Otherwise, kids are mostly good for @$@!! photo-opportunities by politicians, rather than serious policy making.
But frankly, kids need a lot more soapboxes with people standing on them advocating for children, for the public good for children, rather than for feathering their own adult nests.
But that, of course, is not what happens.
That’s what scares me about the way we treat kids today, and how we “help” them grow up today.
abused, their families are close to the edge and do not have resources enough to keep comfortable. And our dear congress, rather than eliminate the tax increases they gave the richest amonst us are chopping aid to the poorest amongst us. And they call themselves CHRISTIAN????
Wilful ignorance frightens me. Any group or religion’s insistence that they are God’s chosen people, that only they know his straight word, and that they therefore have a monopoly on the truth, that frightens me.
The prospect of Roe being overturned, and women being sent back to the back-alley butchers, even more than they already are, frightens me to my bones.
I don’t think I’m quite as old as Ductape, 🙂 but I’m old enough that I, too, fear that the children I know, my son and my nieces and nephews, my son’s friends, my friends’ children, all the children, may not have a world to grow up in.
And as a mother, I am of course frightened more than anything by every possible thing that could harm my son. As Second Nature said, it’s not easier when they grow up, in some ways it’s harder. I’m afraid of every scenario that involves him in a car — him driving, one of his friends driving, alcohol or dope being consumed, or all of them being good kids, and obeying the rules, and getting taken out by somebody else driving drunk.
I’m afraid that my son, an 18-year-old, 6 foot 3, brown young man, will come to harm at the hands of the police, just for being in the wrong place. Or running on the street. Or Driving While Brown. Or that he’ll run afoul of some drunken redneck, for the same thing. Or for nothing.
I’m afraid that the world is turning into a place that is becoming irrevocably dangerous for me, for my son, for my friends. I’m a white lesbian mother of a brown son. My friends are feminists, socialists, trade unionists, lesbians, leftists, queers and commies of all stripes and descriptions. For a few years there, it seemed that we were making a world that would be safe for us, for everyone. Now I fear that we’re heading back into the darkness.
Okay, I’m going to bed before I depress myself and everyone else any further! I’m usually something of a utopian optimist, but Carnacki’s question seems to have uncorked a bottle and let out my doom-and-gloom genie.
Peace.
I am scared of experiencing shortness of breath, but this is because I had a serious heart attack last year and am now literally back from the dead.
I am scared for the health and well being of my fellow man and all the rest of the living creatures on this earth because of the increased depradations of the lunatics in power around the world.
I’m fearful of the horror this administration has inflicted on the global community, and the unthinkable ramifications we have yet to witness.
But I’m mostly fearful of the apathy and ignorance that have allowed this administration to continue and prosper.
I don’t have kids (yet), but I think this fear is related. I fear a violation of my space, my person, and my family.
Sometimes as I drift towards sleep, a noise from outside my house will infiltrate my bedroom and trigger an irrational feeling that someone is breaking into my home. I am conscious of being nearly asleep and struggle to wake myself up. Sometimes, I think I have woken myself when I have not, and I find myself paralyzed, helpless to do anything about the invaders who may rob, rape, or kill me and my wife. Eventually, I do manage to wake myself. Then I grab the baseball bat I keep under the bed and walk through the house checking windows and locks.
I live in a good neighborhood, but still can’t escape these pseudo-nightmares. Carl Sagan explained this kind of episode in his book “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”. According to Sagan, different parts of the brain and body may fall asleep at different rates, leaving you semiconscious, yet also dreaming. The subconscious feeds the conscious from whatever store of beliefs it holds. So, if I were extremely religious, these episodes might be visits by angels or demons instead of home invasions. Likewise, if I were not a skeptic, these episodes might be visits by aliens. But as an unbeliever, my brain instead references “Law and Order”, “CSI”, “Unbreakable”, and the real life Richard Ramirez/Night Stalker story from my youth.
Nuclear war, in which I am not vaporized, is a close second on my list. As a kid, the city I live in would test the air raid sirens right across from my elementary school every-other Friday at 10:00AM – just as we students were going to recess. They don’t test the sirens anymore, but the fear they taught me is still there.
I’m scared that we are all so scared.
I fear that my children will not remember their big sister.
I fear that I let her down, in one of so many ways, and this irrational fear feeds my guilt.
I fear that in a short time, my eldest daughter may be better off–or that she already is, that it could have been worse–much, much, worse.
I fear that the phone will ring again at 3:30.
I fear what my dreams may hold for me.
I fear for my soul, that should I accept any money that I do not donate to charity or put directly into 529 plans I might have to answer for, here and whatever constitutes the next life.
I fear that I am somehow responsible, that some day I will be called on the carpet for not providing…money, guidance, support of some kind–anything that would have put her in a different place for 30 seconds. Just 30 seconds.
I fear for our country.
I fear for our soldiers, and for their families.
I fear for my sanity, at times, when I start feeling skittish, panicky.
I fear for my uncle, and those around him, as he is now becoming delusional in the end stage, and wants nothing more than to spend his last days/hours driving country roads and hunting. He has become a danger to himself and those around him.
I fear that I will not have the heart, or the courage, to try and rein him in in some way, for his good and the good of those around him.
I fear that there is no God, that there is no afterlife, that my daughter is just gone and no matter how good she was and how good I can attempt to be that I will never see her, feel her, experience her essence again.
I fear trying to talk with God, I fear that I am trying to bargain with him, saying that we have paid enough, my family should be left alone now, and that he may be vindictive after all, unwilling to suffer such without doling out further punishment.
I fear for those at home this winter, with their heat to low and all those long cold nights ahead, those that cannot afford to keep themselves warm. I fear for the souls of those who would attempt to profit from such.
I fear for my Jake’s safety–he is so hard to suppress at all, so hard to slow down, so fearless and defiant.
I fear failing as a parent, presenting a bad image to my children, leading them astray through thought, word, and deed.
I fear for all the children of the world, who seem so often to be viewed as property, or an inconvenience.
I fear that I will never forgive myself, that I cannot, that I do not deserve it.
I fear life, and I fear death. I fear judgment.
I fear that it will happen again, that it will break my mind and my spirit, to the point that I cannot function for the good of those who would remain.
My fear, and my guilt, are boundless, endless, like the ocean…or the desert. I am not sure that there is anyway to save myself, or anyone to save me–though my wife and my children, my family and friends have brought me this far. Tonight, I believe, will be another night that I do not sit alone in my basement and drink myself to sleep–and they are responsible for that. As are all of you.
I hope that you will find a way to not live in fear and I wish I could give it to you.
Meditation has helped me to deal with such things as you have been faced with, not as terrible as you have suffered, but you know…
I feel that you are finding comfort in your family; that is good and perhaps you will seek out some grief counseling.
Very difficult for me to find the right words, but I did want to acknowledge I heard you, you are in my thoughts and I send positive vibrations out to you.
As to an afterlife, I have no doubt of that, as Shirstars would say and I agree, energy cannot be destroyed.
Best wishes my friend!
One of my favorite phrases encountered throughout my days is from John Henry Cardinal Newman: Cor ad cor loquitur – Heart Speaks to Heart
Thank you for baring your deepest emotions. We are here for you as shoulders to rest, as crutches to help you move forward and as friends to remind you that life is best spent shared with others.
Paz, mi amigo. Paz.
There are no words.
There are no answers.
Let go of the coulda, shoulda, woulda…and you will in time.
The pain feels unbearable but the love in your family will sustain you. The love from your friends and from strangers is here. Sometimes the pain will ease for a while and you will feel guilty…let it ease. Sometimes the pain will be excruciating and sometimes we all sit in the basement.
I shed tears of healing for you today and shed tears for my own loss. We do this one day at time and for those that remain and need our love.
I have no words for you that don’t seem puny in the face of such sadness. We are all so fragile and that’s where most of our fears are born.
Just keep reaching out.
Peace.