*cricketbox*

I’ve been thinking quite often, lately, about fear.  I was on a whole bunch of television sets about a week ago, and it made me incredibly nervous.  I knew how the show ended up, but had no idea of how I’d be portrayed; with my history I don’t trust media types.  I realized that, during the taping, aside from the anti-anxiety drugs coursing through my veins, the thing which kept me focused was the Litany Against Fear.  Stop me if you’ve heard this one. . .

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

If you’re a geek like me, or a Lynch fan you probably know at least part of that.  I’m not a religious man, nor very spiritual. I am, however, extremely superstitious.  I, like most other humans, have a need for ritual and repetition.  Serialized routine is very soothing to me, since most of the time I feel very unsettled.  Strange that eight lines from a Sci-Fi novel would have that kind of impact on me, but they do.  Hey, there are plenty of people who have taken the words of a hack to be their RELIGION, and at least my book didn’t have anything to do with body-possessing aliens.

The other thing that I have at the ready in my mental tape-library is a bit from one of my idols, Bill Hicks.  In fact, if you saw me on the boob-tube, I was actually wearing my Bill Hicks t-shirt given to me by Josh.  Again it is a comfort thing, for me, to be able to look in a mirror and see Bill’s slightly snarky, eternally wise, visage staring back at me.  Over the last eight years I found myself asking, at times daily, what Bill would’ve thought, had to say, etc.  When my internal fear finally does boil over, and takes hold of me I often hear Hicks’ voice in my head repeating:

The world is like a ride at an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it, you think it’s real, because that’s how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round and it has thrills and chills and it’s very brightly colored and it’s very loud. And it’s fun, for a while.

Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: ‘Is this real? Or is this just a ride?’ And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and they say ‘Hey! Don’t worry, don’t be afraid – ever – because… this is just a ride.’ And we kill those people.

‘Shut him up! We have a lot invested in this ride! Shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry; look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real.’

It’s just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that – ever notice that? – and we let the demons run amok. But it doesn’t matter, because… it’s just a ride, and we can change it any time we want. It’s only a choice. No effort. No worry. No job. No savings and money. Just a choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy bigger guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one.

Here’s what we can do to change the world, right now, into a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defense each year and, instead, spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would do many times over – not one human being excluded – and we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever. In peace.

To give you an idea about how I feel about this guy, I couldn’t copy/paste that paragraph without shedding a couple of tears.  Yeah, it’s like that.  When I panic, I hear his reminder and it calms me down.  When I’m out having a good time, I hear his reminder which heartens me to take in as much as I can, for as long as I’m able.  For the majority of my adult life I’ve tried, as best I could, to live by his example, and even though I’m not really able to do that right now, I still aspire to it.

On Friday 1/30/09 David Letterman finally did Bill one solid, here it is, timely as ever:

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