“ It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking. “
I’ve been thinking about fear a lot the past several months. We all have an inner warning system that gives us situational awareness. Even people who are ruining their lives with addictive behaviors (drugs, alcohol, gambling, too much eating, not enough of the right kind of food and the list goes on…. )have a set of instinctive reactions that will, in the right set of circumstances, keep them from walking off a cliff.
I tell people who come out to meet horses for the first time that fear is a normal, in fact healthy, reaction to being with a horse for the first time. You’re standing next to a sentient creature who is a thousand pounds of muscle and bone that can kill a human without much effort. Assessing your situation is smart! Thankfully it is not in the nature of a horse to kill without extreme provocation. Listening to your “lizard brain” has kept you alive.
“ I must not fear. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see it’s path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. “
Fear is one of the easiest ways to manipulate the vast majority of people. The use of the media and social platforms has been used very effectively to magnify a situation that has become untenable. Countries all over the world have been divided, neighbors and old friends are at odds with each other. Here in the USA our schools were closed, small businesses were considered non essential and closed. Our church’s, when people needed each other and their faith the most, were closed and the leaders of those church’s arrested for continuing to have services.
We were told to wear masks to keep ourselves safe, to stay away from all gatherings. People died alone, without their families at their sides to help them through the transition from this life to the next. We were very effectively divided and isolated from each other. We were terrified in to submission using confusing information that came from so called authorities. If anyone asked questions, especially logical questions, about what was going on we were censored, castigated.
When I began to openly ask questions, to refuse to wear a mask or play this game, I was called a heretic, a mass murderer, a monster. I was called a supremicist, a bigot, cruel and thoughtless, and so on. The list of so called evils reached ludicrous levels pretty quickly. So I withdrew from all social media platforms, from reading the news. That was a fear response on my part. What if these threats came back on my family? I was not prepared for the mob mind entering my home.
I retreated to my cave while I recovered. I wasn’t sick. I was appalled. The veneer of civilized behavior was much thinner than I realized. No one, not even my former personal physician who had also been a friend, was interested in alternative ideas or questions. I was castigated for being me. The picture of me being painted by people I had known for many years did not match who I thought I had shown them. I needed to know why.
“ Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. “
Evidently I had become the “horse” and people were afraid of my curiosity, my ability to see outside their safe space. My questions were the unknown and I was shunned. Thankfully I have my family. Although those bonds were tested during the past year and a half, our love and respect for each other overrode the social pressure . Because of my adult children arranging a vacation for all of us to spend time as a family, we were for ten days together, supporting each other. For a time we were in the present without the woes of a confusing world, politics or societal issues interfering.
“ The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows - a wall against the wind. “
There’s nothing small about love, but some of the smallest things that happened while we were on this vacation were the largest. When my grandchild offered to help me make a bed, and then we jumped on it, my heart was full. I laughed and it opened up the places I had retreated to for protection. The light shining in was perfect. All of the spontaneous hugs, a chipmunk round up when three chipmunks came in an open door, the hike that we met a black bear on, making pancakes together and hearing my favorite in-law say that I was an honorable person filled in all of the tiny wounds and helped me to heal.
We were still Americans who loved each other for all of our complicated differences. And we were together. For those ten days I left fear outside the door and was able to look at it from a different point of view. It was OK to let it in because it is a normal and healthy part of life. There is no light without the dark to show us the edges.
It’s occurred to me that we have become a society of very comfortable people who do not want our walls shaken. I genuinely think that the majority of us want to be kind. We want to raise our children, delight in their families and the grandchildren they bring in to our lives. We want to pay our bills, help our neighbors when we can and to live without too much strife. Most of the reactions this past year and a half were from frightened people who were being challenged and felt they had no where to turn, so they attacked.
Very few people were ready to tackle a rocky, uphill climb with obstacles in their way. They had grown complacent, had forgotten how to meet a challenge. The fear was overwhelming and was used to create anger, confusion, strife and was magnified with the exhaustion of loss of sleep, lack of exercise and isolation. So they struck out with words and, unfortunately, sometimes actions. They were fighting for their lives, in their minds, and I was an easy to spot target because I was different in my reactions, a threat to their comfort zone.
“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.”
I admit that I am still confused. I can not fathom why people are so complacent in a situation that is not logical. From my point of view we are all participating in the destruction of our own country. Very few small businesses have survived the past year and a half. Big box stores including liquor stores, pharmaceutical stores, strip joints and gambling casinos as well as big box grocery stores and gas stations have been left alone and considered essential. Small businesses are the backbone of our country. It’s the entrepreneurial spirit and imagination that makes the USA a power house, an example of freedom in the world. It’s the self destruction of the American Dream. Why didn’t people fight that harder? FEAR. Fear of the unknown and unseen. How do you fight something you can’t see?
“ Listen to the mustn’t, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me …. Anything can happen, child. Anything can be. “
So I am on a campaign of leading by example. I do not fight with anyone who thinks differently than I do. I listen and try to understand. And then I continue on my way, doing what I was doing. I have decided to live my life the way I always have. NO MASKS. NO SOCIAL DISTANCING (I despise that made up by the media term. ). I do what I have always done. I will not change to match society’s expectations. So far I do not see people going back to masks. Certainly there are some people who never stopped wearing them. That is THEIR CHOICE. The vast majority of people are back to living without the symbol of control, a mask. We’re being told that another lockdown is coming, that vaccines are not enough, that masks have to continue to be used. But the cat is out of the bag on that one. Too many of the so called “elite” are being caught with their panties down and NO MASKS. I prefer to think that people are going to ask questions about why ANY mask, lockdown or social distancing is needed. Resistance to thoughtless compliance is NOT futile.
I am sharing from my gardens. I am sharing eggs. I am sharing time when someone needs me to be there, if I can. I smile, always a genuine smile too. I enjoy people, always have. I like meeting them, listening to their stories. I greet them, “ Good morning! “ or, “ Hi! “. I wave from my truck, smile at babies, compliment new mothers. And if someone obviously is distressed by my behavior I move on. I do not take it personally. How they behave is a reflection of who they are. I make no assumptions, and am actively refusing to participate in gossip. “ I don’t want to talk about that. “
I am planting even more flowers. The world needs color and beauty. I’ve put in to my budget BUY POUNDS AND POUNDS OF FLOWER SEEDS. I’m planting fruit bearing trees. If they don’t make it past the deer then at least the deer have benefited (although I am working on a system to protect the baby trees).
We are repairing, to the best of our abilities, the house and out buildings. We’re painting and replacing as we can. I am following through on an old Girl Scout Moto, “ Leave a place better than you found it. “
. Notice that I said GIRL. I am standing my ground on the fact that I am female, that I believe there are two sexes, male or female. I support marriage between a man and a woman. Women are the ones who have wombs, a uterus, ovaries, vagina, breasts, and have babies. Men have testicals and a penis. A man can not be pregnant or have a child that he carries in his body. He has no womb nor eggs. He contributes sperm.
I have nothing to say to anyone about the so called transitioning to another sex. No matter what you choose to do to your body, you were born either male or female. You will still have a set of chromosomes that identify you as female or male.
I am not playing the color game anymore than I have at any other time of my life. I like people. I don’t care about their colors. ALL LIVES MATTER and they always have. The rest is just semantics.
“ The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and although in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater. “
I don’t know what to tell you, dear reader. I have just been notified that my email list is no longer available . At this point I am writing to myself. I am being censored. How interesting. I’ve spent the vast majority of my life without an internet. Somehow I survived just fine without the so called approval of whomever it is that has flagged this BLOG. What I have to say still counts, at least for me. I AM STANDING MY GROUND. I am exactly who I have always been.
“ Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed. “
I guess there is no end, no real conclusion to this. I will send this via text to friends. I am still, ever yours, Nancy, smiling….
“ The first duty of a (wo)man is to think for (her)himself. “
