Tag Archive for 'fear'

Phobia, go away!

OK, many people write here about their memories and dreams.
I would like to tap in subject of fears or phobias. Most of the phobias can’t be really traced. Some are probably imprinted in us. Let’s say, we don’t like snakes. I saw a snake first time when I was about 20, for instance, but remember, what when I was a kid, I always tried to sit in an armchair with legs up on the seat, as I was afraid what a snake would bite me from under. Even then I thought it can’t be possible what a snake would be on the 7th floor of our block of flats in a harsh winter, 20 Celsius below zero. But I couldn’t bring myself to put my feet down. I could spend a whole evening imagining scenarios of how a snake could sneak under my armchair.

Anyway, I suppose most of phobias are triggered by something in remote past, early childhood and long time forgotten memories. I can trace one my phobia though, as I can recall what happened to me.

I travelled to one remote city hitchhiking. I was very young, completely broke and wanted to see a girl I was in love with. To cut it short, she did not fancy me much and her boyfriend did even less. They lived in a massive hostel inhabited with hundreds students at that time. She had a kind heart, so instead of kicking me out I was fed and passed to a friend of hers who happened to live alone in a spacious room in that hostel. This friend of her was a girl of enormous size. She spoke in a deep low voice which could shake a glass and was torturing me all the way down along endless staircases and corridors with tales about her romantic adventures.
To be honest, my mind was occupied in that moment so I couldn’t remember what they were about even the next day, do not mention years later.

Eventually I found myself in her room. It was filled with hundreds of little objects. Everything was of dwarfs’ size. The girl obviously tried her best to fit in that space as many tiny objects as possible. Everything there was organized by a principle “the smaller is the better”. She had dolls’ furniture and cutlery, small carpets, miniature stereo and lots of stupid useless toy objects which she apparently was collecting.
It was too much… Simply beyond my capability to digest it. I left her place at once with a splitting headache.
That’s how I recognized that I have a psychological trauma about everything little.
Small things are just freaking me out; I don’t like dwarf pets, dogs and ponies either.

I wonder what I can do with it. Well, some people could say that phobias and fixations are the integral part of our individuality. Phobium ergo est. I’m scared, therefore I exist. Johnny Depp is afraid of clowns for instance. They are freaking him out, he said in his recent interview. I’ve met a girl while ago who confessed she is afraid of balloons. What’s wrong with clowns? What’s wrong with fucking balloons? Why do I have to feel uneasy surrounded by small objects? I tried to google my phobia, but couldn’t find even a specific name for it, so there was no way to find out how I can deal with it.
It’s not a serious problem though, just a little annoyance.
I have learnt anyway what one of the best ways to deal with phobias is to talk about them. That’s what this post is about actually, so you know.

abraxus

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Memory Garden

My relationship to memories is rather ambivalent.  I don’t really have anything personal against them, although they allow themselves to penetrate my thoughts without invitation and having the irritating habit to be memories of the unpleasant sort for the most part. But for mischievous as they might be, I still accept them as a part of me and see myself at the same time as a product of them. It can’t be all that bad after all.

Like my friend Boris says: I wonder where 99% of my memories got dumped. The Black Holes of Memory Kingdom? And I wonder why the most vivid ones of the remaining 1% are memories that I would rather put in the beloved ‘recycling bin’.

Of course there are good ones too, but inevitably they seem utterly powerless and without any impact if compared to the actual moment of happiness. Just a gray shadow of what once was a glorious and kaleidoscopic moment in our lives.

A wise man once said (I don’t remember his name) that 99% of humanity is either trapped in the past, reviewing and reviewing past experiences, or entangled in hopes and worries about the future. Only 1% (if we are lucky) lives in the present, the NOW. sad but true…

So, at this point I must say that I am not really a ‘past’ person. I’m rather a ‘future’ kind of guy…often worried about what might happen and afraid to take important decisions. I rarely evoke past memories because I can’t really get any pleasure in recalling them.

but still…I have my share of memories…and the one I would like to share here is not only the most vivid and the most extraordinary of them all, but it happens to be also a happy memory, a memory of a moment that changed my life forever.

Continue reading ‘Memory Garden’

Other posts by Mezcal

reeling in then letting slack

time passes and blurred the waters

a ripple and a glimpse

as the arced line strikes the surface

defacing the glassy smooth

hours rife with illusion

games played and friends forgot

as i lay on her hip

and tremble for some comfort

still i fished on

with a care and attention to

the arts of angling such

as i never attempted before

(never had to…before…)

and kept safely away from the big ones

in the murky pool for fear

and trepidation of what i knew i’d find there

ieclectic

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When I got kidnapped hitchhiking to school

It was a day, that started out like many others that year. I got up, got ready for school and left my house. I walked the two blocks to the intersection of Chilliwack Central and Broadyway under an overcast sky. Stood across from highroad academy with my thumb out, waiting for a ride to Agassiz. I was shortly picked up by a skinny gangly man in a small red pick up truck. He seemed friendly eneugh, although he kept trying to get me to skip school to help him move pot plants, for 100 bucks. He also started smoking crack shortly after i got in. We chatted pleasantly eneugh as he drove towards agassiz, although he tried to offer me a hoot of crack. Everything seemed to be going well until he flew past the exit into agassiz, which i promptly pointed out to him. “your not going to school today” he answered, emphasizing his point with the gun, that was now in his hand. I can honestly say, this was the first time in my life that i actually wanted to go to school. It was also the first time i’d had a gun aimed at me. In less that a second i was more than frightened, i was terrified. I immediately began begging for my life. I tried everything i could think of, That i had a test, that id be expelled for skipping, even that i had a date at lunch. All false and all to no avail. I continued on like this for 15-20 minutes or so, until i realised it wasnt helping. With that realisation came another, that this could be the last day of my life. In that moment something inside me died, it felt like a candle being snuffed out in my chest. This is a moment ill remember the rest of my life. In that one instant i changed, all at once i grew up, like a butterfly leaving a cocoon. Continue reading ‘When I got kidnapped hitchhiking to school’

Other posts by Dalarius