“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” -Marcus Aurelius

“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your reactions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

I do well with facing my fears. I won’t really give myself credit for a lot of things aside from painting, but this is true. I don’t know why, but I have. I’m not saying it is the best way, just my way which works for me. If something frightens me I’d rather just tackle it than let it control me. Whether that be the study of Judo (which does scare me), following my talent as a way of life, or putting up my shortcomings, foibles, and viewpoints on here for public scrutiny. In this life I may have lacked common sense, but I have rarely lacked courage and that is the truth. At times  I wonder if the two are even compatible.

They say ones fears grow in the dark, and if that is the case, better to turn on the light. My daughters ask me ‘Dad, why don’t you get scared? You’re never scared of anything.’ Kids are interesting. Lately my daughters have been on a bit of a run concerning various fears. For the little one they revolve around things like earthquakes and volcanoes. For the older one, the fears are about dying, friendship and how others perceive us. I do what I can to alleviate them and let them know not to worry. And I will do my best to prevent them from knowing the hard truths for a little time to come. Because the truth is that I do get scared and I do still have fears and a significant number of them

Every man is reluctant to discuss his fears. It’s probably the thing we like to talk about least concerning ourselves. If you’re a man who tells me he has no fears I’ll suspect you’re lying to me. And if you’re a man who’s a parent who tells me the same thing I’ll know you’re lying to me. While I am not paralyzed by my fears, they often can serve to make life a lot more taxing. At any rate I’m willing to discuss a few of my own because like I said, helpful to confront your fears head on.

Better to leave the field being carried on ones shield, rather than die cowering beneath it.

My fears run across a wide and varied spectrum. From the ridiculous and the absurd to the deep and far-reaching. I have legitimate fears like whether or not I’m going to break something that I really need while training in Judo. Whether or not something is going to happen that will leave me with a serious and long lasting injury. In a sport that regularly sees people thrown onto their backs, shoulders, and sometimes heads or necks, anything is possible.

I have a vain and vacuous fear over growing old and ageing and losing whatever good looks that I may have been lucky enough to have been given. That’s a fear that coincides with my fear of disappearing from society, of fading into the background as an older person in a Western society that is totally obsessed with worshipping and kneeling at the altar of youth.

Those surface, trivial fears are easily managed for the most part. Then I have the real intangible fears that lurk back in the recesses of my mind. I have incessant, unrelenting fears as a parent. I am afraid for my young daughters growing up in a world that often resembles an open sewer. I fear for their safety. I fear that I am not do everything I need into order to prepare them in the manner in which they need to be prepared. I worry about raising young women in this world and how to shield them from the rampant sexualization of everything. I am often terrified at the prospect of losing either of them. Real, real fear of harm befalling them. And I know that these fears will not be abated. My fears as a parent will stay with me for the rest of my life, and how do I live with that and put my mind at ease. It’s not needless worry or paranoia. This world has been a fucked up place since I was kid, and since then that aspect of it has increased ten fold. My parenting fears are grounded in a deep awareness of practical reality.

I have a real consuming fear that I will somehow not be able to move and return home to the US. That is not a slight against NZ. It’s just that this is a place that I think will always feel and present itself as foreign to me . It’s strange the lessons life will give you. Like sometimes how you have to be so far removed from something in order to understand its true worth and value. I never gave much weight or thought to being an American. But 6 years away from the US and I now realize I would bleed on the flag to make sure the stripes run red. You know right this moment I would give a lot to see a couple of cholos hanging on Pico Boulevard with their socks pulled up to their knees. Or just to catch up with some old friends on a warm DC evening in Adams Morgan. The US is my home, and now I am so far away and everything is so financially difficult in this economy and with kids piled on it that I wonder when I’ll return. I’m truly afraid that while I am so far away from home that something will happen to one of my parents while over here. A few people have heard this story: But I have this friend over here, Romanian guy. One of my closest friends actually. Anyway, his father died last year over in Romania. His old man died, and was dead and buried by the time he got back in the country. He’s a really staunch guy, one of the hardest people I know, and even so you could see that it really tore him up inside. I saw that happen and it did and still does scare me shitless. So I am really scared that I won’t be able to get home, back to my community and roots. Somewhere where I can be me and feel safe in the company of people who know me and look like me.

I have fear and concern over myself. My life has so many levels of isolation involved within it that I struggle with. The isolation of being a black artist in an elitist profession that has largely bestowed legitimacy only on white males. Being American in NZ, being black and living in Christchurch. Christchurch is such a suffocating place sometimes that living here I feel like I can’t even breathe. Sometimes even the trivial shit like being the only male in my household can be awkward and weird. I try to take all of this in stride because I chose this path. Sometimes though I spend so much time trying to maintain my parenting and work responsibilities while walking it that it makes cultivating and sustaining any real and meaningful friendships really difficult. I’ve been running on empty so long that I have honestly forgotten what it feels like to have a surplus of energy. I’m not being dramatic: I mean I really don’t know.

I envy my daughters.

I envy them because they’re still at an age where they can bring me their worries and I can sit down with them and relieve them of those fears. I can reassure them and let them know that things will be fine. You can see them settle and watch the sense of safety come back to their eyes before they go merrily about their business again. That is something I’d love to have. It would be such an assurance to have someone sit down with me. Really sit down with me, alleviate my fears, and tell me not to worry, that everything would be okay. Because the mountain I stare at and climb on a daily basis is daunting and just scares me witless sometimes and I have no fear or shame in admitting that. As adults though, that is something we rarely receive. And the bigger problem is that even if you do, you’re old enough to know better.

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