6/9/01

N.B.

(I'm a child at heart. I'm a childish person, and so the adult problems that are now becoming more and more apparent i find difficulty in dealing with, such as this one.)

"There's an apprehensive naked little boy with his head in his hands. There's an underestimated and impatient little girl raising her hand.

But it's easy not to, so much easier not to. And what goes around never comes around to you"

- Alanis Morrisette, 'Wake Up'

Fear

We all get gripped by fear at some stage in our lives, from frantically batting our arms at the sight of a bee, being rejected by your friends, the fear of death, or whether we can really reverse park into that spot.

Currently the Foamy One is struggling with two types of fear. The fear of rejection and the fear of never knowing, (by never i mean it being physically impossible of never knowing due to the subject of that fear now being in another plane of existence)

Now fear as made the Foamy One do some stupid things. Like the time i had biro 'artwork' plastered over my arms, partly due to the fear of rejection (a completely different story) and the fear of being kicked in the love spuds.

Fear also holds people back. The fear of failure holds people back from doing that dream job and the fear of rejection has held me back from saying certain things.

It is rare that people are faced with one of their fears (stinging insects aside). Usually our fears are manifested by unspeakable things, situations etc and therefore we believe that they cannot ever happen to us. While i have faced rejection many times, past rejections now seem a small deal while future rejection is made even more daunting than before.

Why? Because i was faced with a very big fear, the fear of never knowing. While many people can claim that they will never know if they could've written that book, or wrote that song. Not many can say that they'll never know because it was taken away from them un-willingly. The people who say that they could've played for Man Utd if they wanted to were held back by the fear of rejection. These people can cope with not doing what they wanted because they made that decision, and on the whole they still hold the belief that 'one day I'll do it'. 

These people are very different from the people who wanted to play football but lets say, had an accident leaving them with no arms, legs, sight, speech and paralyzed. These are the people who will truly never know. It is made even worse for these people as the fear of never knowing is what kept them going to achieve that dream, the fear of never knowing destroys the fear of failure/rejection. Now they know they will never know, and it wasn't their fault. It would perhaps be easier to live with that decision of you had made it yourself.

Recently i have also faced a similar "I'll never know situation" and let me tell you its the bad kind of "I'll never know". You'd think that someone who has dealt with that fear would've learnt to cancel all other fears because "if you can deal with that, you can deal with anything." Sadly the Foamy One has come to realise that if that fear can actually happen and manifest itself, then all the others can happen as well, death, rejection, bee stings etc.

I still (hopefully) have plenty of time to deal with my fear of dying, and bee stings only offer small physical harm. However rejection is something that the Foamy One may have to face up to soon, or perhaps not. And it is that which keeps me going, if i'm not rejected it could be the happiest time of his life, if he is then damn, thing's will get worse.

The funny thing is that before i was faced with "never knowing" and obviously mine, or someone close to me dying, the fear of rejection fuelled the fear of never knowing, which spurred me on with many things. Now however, the fear of never knowing is making the fear of rejections even worse because i know if i don't even try to be rejected the same thing could happen again...I'll never ever know.

My advice to anyone reading this is to conquer that fear before that impossible, far off fearful event actually happens. Force that fear to the point where there is no turning back. E.g. Think back to that first kiss, wherever it was with whoever it was. I bet there were a couple of fears running through your head then, "what do i do?", "will i like it?", "will she like it?" Then by the time you've thought of fear no.356 it's too late, you and he/she are standing too close together full of anticipation (and bodily fluids) Then once it's over, you think "not bad. Actually i quite liked that" 

So before the fear grips you, whether you're leaving home, having a baby, having intercourse, going to uni, passing your driving test, turning 20,18 16 etc, getting that first girlfriend/kiss, face that fear and don't look back until you're actually starting to enjoy it. And sticking two fingers up to the fear parade as you drive right through it.

For anyone who can't read between the lines the Foamy One is currently having a minor battle, 

The Fear of Never Knowing V The Fear of Rejection in a hell in a cell match. 

I just hope the fear of never knowing wins so that my fear of rejection will retire.

Who'll win? I'll keep you posted.

So in future, if any of the ladies out there would like an evening with the Foamy One, even a little bit tell me so that i don't have to worry about silly little things like this any more.

"The worst they can say is no!"

Yeah, and that truly is the worst of them all. 

Have a Foam Filled Day!

© Paul Hunt 2001