26 | March | 2019 | YOURS IN STORYTELLING...

Fear is the Mind Killer

I’m on my last day of antibiotics and the bronchitis has cleared up and I am hoping that I have seen the end of this shit. I am pretty sure that I have figured out where this infection is coming from. I believe my CPAP is full of funky germs that infect while I sleep. So I’ve bought new hoses and a new nozzle and new filters. I’ve bathed that sucker in strong vinegar and sung to it and I’ve hit it with two back-to-back ozone blasts, and I am hoping that killed all of the funk.

But I am scared.

Fear is a natural part of a person’s life, especially as they get older. Life becomes a little more precious. We have got more to do with our time and less time to go around. Things have begun to pile up.

A friend of mine online described a recent experience with fear. He had misplaced his glasses. They were expensive glasses. Heavy-duty prescription jobbies that were just too darned expensive to keep a second pair around. So he freaked out a little and then he found them and everything was cool again except that he was left with the lingering fear that he was getting old.

You have to understand that he just retired, so that thought was looming over his lizard brain just naturally, without the worry of losing a pair of expensive one-of-a-kind glasses egging it on.

So I told him this.

I told him not to worry about it. I told him that as a fellow gets older he has got more crap built up in the attic. Makes it harder to find things. Doesn’t mean that you’re senile. Doesn’t mean that your cerebral circuits burnt out. Just means that it took you a while to process the thought – and then, while you were taking a while you freaked out.

Fear is the mind killer.

Fellows our age are full of fear.

(and yes, I know that women are full of fear as well, but I just can’t help but use the masculine terminology, just because I find that I think clearer if I don’t get all caught up in being grammatically and politically correct about things. So I still say “he” and “fellow” when I am referring to experiences that reflect my own life)

I told my buddy that fear is only a natural experience. I told him to not give it anymore weight than you need to. I set down my glasses all the time and stomp around the house waving my arms like they were fucking magic antennas and then I trip over my glasses and feel like ten kinds of stupid and I think to myself “Shit, I’m getting old.”

Damn.

I am so freaking wise, sometimes.

Why in the hell can’t I ever seem to remember all of this deep and spiritual wisdom when I am running around the house and waving my stupid magic antenna arms, trying to find my goddamn glasses?

I dedicate this blog entry to my wife, who always seems to know where the fucking things are – especially when I don’t.

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