(excerpts from the prelude)
I call it dipping their toe in the
cold waters of fear.
—Alfred Hitchcock
that which weaves us all together —
and so intricately, so delicately —
is fear.
lately, for me, agoraphobia.
also, always, being on an
airplane. yet the undeniable
joy of getting out and about.
of seeing the world.
what are
phobias but fears? and
what is it that fear is, in-
evitably, so afraid of? well,
death.
what is death? this gets a bit
difficult to assess. but the fear
is consistent.
people afraid
of touch, of proximity,
of physical intimacy (would
that this were a redundant
phrase).
people are so often afraid
of even a little bit of death.
one might add that a
little death (which is
no small thing)
can go a long way...
...think intense and concen-
trated release of tension.
think marriage; think
affair. think syphilis;
etc.
it was a fabulous affair.
he concentrated for
so long that he blew
a gasket (a blood
vessel in the corner
of his eye).
fear of public speaking,
that old standard: the
purported “fear #1” ...
which i equate with
performance anxiety.
(yet, how embodying
a character that is
not one’s own can
often reduce so-called
“stage fright.”)
the titillation of
duplicity. the
horrors of same.
i sometimes enjoy
something so deeply
(for example, a tv series
or a novel) that as the end
nears
i start reducing the speed
of my intake (realizing
how precious my time
is with it, reveling and
relishing in (the relish-
ing of) it, all the while
getting slower and
slower ... and ...
slower ...
until
i simply refuse to
finish it.
ever.
it continues to exist,
is always as alive as
ever. or almost as
much it was when my
focus was laser beam
to the screen, to each
page.
how this is only one
of the numerous ways
in which i deliberately
and successfully
avoid death.
