We (human beings) have a natural fear of danger, but have you ever stopped to think about how dangerous fear is? Well... I just did, and let me tell you about what conclusions I drew. Sometimes I won't do things because I am afraid of what might come of them. What fear does is it allows us to make up legitamate answers in our heads of why we shouldn't and therefore, we convince ourselves that the fear we feel is necessary, when most of the time (at least for me) it isn't. I find myself fearing stupid things. Most of my fears are based on past experiences of pain. I remember when I was little I used to love rollerblading down the sloped street in front of my house. It was one of the best things in the world for me until the day that I, in my confidence, fell off and got scraped up. How long do you think it was before I got back in those roller blades and went down that hill. It was years. I kept telling myself that the pain wasn't worth it and that going down that hill wasn't all that important anyways. I had scars to remind me of this. Over the years I grew more and more passive because I didn't want to get hurt. I was missing out on many things failing to note that God has created my body to heal itself. I just didn't want to hurt, so I solved the problem by not attempting risks. Well, eventually I grew out of this fear of physical activity when I hit puberty. Testosterown (i spelled it wrong because when spelled correctly, it turns in to a hyperlink for some sex drug... isn't that horrible? this is my journal, not an advertisement for viagra!) does strange stuff to us guys. With puberty, though, came a new fear in to my life which replaced the old. This is a fear that I still struggle with and still have scars from, but I am in the midst of moving out of it and into yet another phase of fears. When I was a freshman in high school, I was all excited about girls, so I got a girlfriend as soon as I could. I did not weigh the consequences because I didn't know where to begin. All I knew was that high school girls were hot and "sophisticated" (ah the innocent preceptions of the young). Well, later on I ended up hurting that girl really bad. The relationship got old and I realized that I was wasting time so I broke up with her. She was devistated for a long time and I didn't even really care. In fact, I recall getting quite angry at her for making such a big deal about it. After all, earlier on she cheated on me twice and I didn't complain. After that, I was on top of the world. I remembered what freedom felt like and as a result to reflect my mood, I died my hiar a lighter color (I didn't realize the symbolizm at the time, but it comes into play later). A few years down the road I met another girl and I became fearless once more. She was way out of my league, but I figured I would ask her out anyways. What did I have to loose? (probably alot)... I won't really go in to detail, but eventually she said yes and I was exstatic. I couldn't get to sleep for a few days I was so excited. I was like a little kid about the whole thing, but I was a happy little kid. Well, skipping to the end of that story, complications started rearing thier ugly heads. I was going through a very confusing time in my life, and the funny thing is, when I look back at it now, I can see how I became to her like my first girlfriend became to me, and that kinda hurts (Is that a run-on?). Well, as the story goes, I wrote her a song and was going to play it for her one day, but I was cut short before I even had the chance. I folded that song up and left it in the sound hole of my guitar anticipating that surely she wasn't serious (denial). Then I accepted it and learned how it felt being on the other side of the line. I was upset, but I didn't know what I was angry at. In my pain I grew another fear. I feared and started to be cold towards women. I think I may have even swore my life to celebacy (yikes!!!) but I know I diead my hair black in mourning (like a dumb little addolescent). I guess it was just the fact that she broke up with me while I still liked her, I realized that she now had a piece of me that I could never get back. This became my legitamate excues not to date anymore. I withdrew from society and tried to keep busy so that I wouldn't feel so torn apart. That worked for a while, but it was only a temproary solution. One can only run from their fears for so long. After a while I just began analyzing my fears. For years (yeah... years) I was tortured by questions of why. Finally though, I did some growing up and I made peace, but the scars are permanent. As I bear the scars from my restless youth to remind me of physical pain, I also bear scars on my heart that remind me of emotional discomfort (hearts take longer to heal though). Anyways, now has come the time for me to start really thinking about dating, but I admit that I have, through my fear, legitamized so many excuses, that I, in essence, am afraid to (choppy sentence). Metephorically speaking, I just took the bandages off, and I'm not ready to face the possibility of putting them back on. I suppose my point for this winded journal is to point out what fear really does to us. I'm not saying that you should go out and do the things you fear just to prove a point, because there are things out there that can damage you beyond repair (like slapping a bear cub in the face right in front of its mother... yeah, that would just be dumb). All I'm saying is that if you nurture your fears with excuses and run from them instead of straight out facing them, you will be lonely.
Hope you enjoyed my thoughts, and I hope they were thought provoking. I'll talk to y'all later!