Get Up

The basest of all things is to be afraid.

William Faulkner
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One of the biggest and fiercest demons to face in the struggle to survive is not wanting to.

I, like millions of other people in the world, have become adept at the fine art of surviving on nothing. It probably has to do with my boyhood. My father died when I was 4. He went believing that his army pension would take care of his family. He was a war hero and had been decorated by General Patton. But because he wasn't on active duty when he went the government declined to grant my mother his pension. She had a nervous breakdown. But she didn't die. In fact she went on to live another 40 to 50 years.

Within two years of my father's death she sold the house and we plunged into terrifying poverty. I can't even remember some of the places I've lived. My mother had been an actress, she had no other skills, She went off to a typing job everyday with arthritic fingers. She was tough.

I know an actor, talented and reasonably well trained, who refuses to give up his night time office job to engange in an acting career. He would rather lose sleep and take roles in small productions for no money than face the fear, that deep knot in the stomach, over financial insecurity. Unless you're a soap opera actor, financial insecurity is the game. We all face it. We learn to live with it.

During the depression of the 20's men who had lost everything leapt to their deaths out of skyscraper windows. Some men were seen sleeping, mid day, in their blue suits on the grass in Bryant Park. Other men found something else to do. There were a few who sold their wife's strawberry jam from door to door.

In this last depression CEO's found a faster way to go by stepping in front of fast moving trains. The fear of loss, of having nothing left, of not knowing how to survive on nothing has caused a lot of death and destruction. It is a terrifying state for anyone to be in. But FDR said it clearly "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Those men died because of a base fear they couldn't face and death seemed to be the best alternative.

I have faced that fear myself many times and came close to thinking that the best thing to do was to pull the plug on myself. But I kept in mind a quote from Shakespeare, "There's place and means for every man alive." But to find that place and means you have to be alive.

It is said that the Donner Party when stranded next to a frozen lake in the Winter while trying to reach California chewed on bark. In my story Brian And Christine, when lost in a frozen wilderness, they also chew on bark just to stay alive. Brian, Christine and the Donners eventually made it out to safety. Some would have given up and died.

Someone once said that success is getting up one more time than you fall. There's no question that falling is a precipice of fear and getting up again is a big struggle.

Does heaven give us any reward for getting up? Probably not. And does the falling and getting up go on in an endless chain of events? Maybe. But as angry, depressed and fearful as I get, I wish to shake my fist at failure, laugh and go looking for the strawberry jam.

DB - The Vagabond
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SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

In your opinion what is the most amazing thing that could happen during this decade? Make it as outrageous as you want but keep it within the realm of what you consider a possibility.

3 responses so far.

Answers will be published the first day of Summer.

dbdacoba@aol.com

DB - The Vagabond
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Magnificent Minutes 9/26/09

Every moment that you spend facing down fear and trouble makes a difference in the world.

DB - The Vagabond
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Glad to see you.
__________________
Fear is bondage. Trouble is slavery. When we are beset with frightening difficulties the things we are forced to do about it deprive us of the real life we could be living. It is very tempting to just give up and let trouble have it's way with us. That's why it's important to stand up to the complicated details and unpleasant activities that must be done to bring the trouble to it's knees.

The thing to remember is that it's alright to be afraid in the face of danger. depressed by the magnitude of problems and frustrated by delay. Those negative feelings are part of the attack, but they are not the problem.

During the recent trouble I went through I got a lot of reassuring comments from people telling me that all things would work out fine in the end, I knew that. What I didn't know was how much agony I was going to be put through before they did, Not having the information I needed and having to wait for weeks to get it made my burden very heavy. I also received some sympathetic comments from people who knew the type of trauma I was going through. I am grateful for both.

One never knows what effect one's actions can have on others. Standing up to frightening things and not caving in to them, maintaining as positive an attitude as possible and vigorously opposing anything that tries to make one feel unworthy are essential forces not only for the individual but for society as well.

Back in the early Naughties, when I first got my computer, I called to get online. It took my ISP 45 days to do it. They kept screwing up, canceling, reordering and canceling. Every time they put in a new order they sent me a modem. I had a stack of modems on the floor but no Internet. All during the 45 days I was patient. Finally they promised to have it done by the 12th. The day before I got a message saying it would be done by the 15th. That's when I hit the roof.

I had kept a log of all my phone calls with them, as I usually do. I told the last person I talked with that if I wasn't on line by the 12th I was going to make copies of it and send it out to all the Chambers, Associations, Bureaus, and Commissions I could think of, simply so the next poor sucker who came along wouldn't have to go through what they had put me through. I was on line the next day.

DB
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Let there be kites in the wind for you.
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Saturday Contest.

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2 correct answers so far.

Good luck.

DB