I am not a black and white kind of gal. I see gray in everything. Things are rarely clear cut and precise. One of the things I like about math and chemistry is that there is only one answer- it is either right or wrong. It is one of the few times I am OK with black and white- it is kind of a relief, no judgements needed. Art is not like that, neither is life. Things aren’t usually so clear. Actually, I have a hard time with generalizations or “blanket statements.” I want gray areas.
Fear is one of the many emotions that I can see the bad AND the good side of. We all know that fear can make us do or not do things all of the time. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, and on and on often stops us from trying new things or going that extra mile. However, fear is a very powerful and wonderful emotion that can certainly help us, too. In fact we live in an age where we ignore our fears way too often. Have you ever waited for an elevator, only to have the doors open to a lone person on board who sent shivers up your spine? Did you wait for the next elevator or swallow your fear and just get on because you were in a hurry or didn’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings? Animals have instincts that keep them safe. It is better for them to just take flight than stick around to be eaten when they feel that fear. Luckily, we don’t live in a place or have the life of an animal where we are constantly in danger. Or do we? Today in class we were reminded to not put our address on something because we could be stalked. That was a statement born of pure fear which could save some heartache down the road. But a sad state of affairs nonetheless.
So how do we cope with an age of fear? How do we cope with any of our emotions? Recently I have read the idea of anger always being born of fear. All three references said “always”, a very harsh word and one this “gray area girl” shies away from! The last place I read the statement was a twitter quote from Oprah, retweeted from one of her “experts.” Far be it from me to disagree with Oprah or one of her experts, but I at least have to look at this statement. Because I don’t think I agree. Of course if we wanted to work at it, we could find fear at the bottom of everything we do. If we were so inclined. I mean, do you love someone because you are scared to be alone? Do you believe something because you are scared to have a different thought? Do you dress like, act like, pretend to be someone you aren’t because you are afraid of not fitting in? Do you eat something you don’t like because you are afraid of getting fat if you eat the thing you do like? I could go on and on for days! Do we really want to boil everything we do down to fear? I examine my life and motives more than I should probably, but even I don’t want to do that!
Maybe sometimes we are just angry. Someone takes something from us and we get mad and move on. We weren’t really afraid to lose what they took, we just wanted it. We weren’t afraid of them, we just didn’t like what they did. Sometimes we are mad at ourselves. We knew better but did something anyway. We didn’t eat that last cupcake out of fear that it would come to life overnight and eat us, we just wanted it, ate it and now wished we hadn’t. Plain and simple. Sure- sometimes we are scared of someone’s power over us and we get angry, or we fear our own weakness and it makes us mad. But always? Can’t we just eat the cupcake sometimes??
Finding a happy medium of emotions is what keeps us from being locked up as a emotional wreck or crazy criminal. We all had some of this in us as children. Raw emotions, biting, lashing out and more are things we see little kids do and we try to teach them better. Little by little we mature and grow and become adults. We swallow fear and try things we might normally be scared of. (Hopefully, we keep some fear so we aren’t tempted to see what driving our car off a cliff feels like!) We learn to hold back when we are excited so we don’t seem manic and we are cautious about love after we are burned a few times. Again, all of this could be boiled down to fear, but I don’t want to think everything I do is motivated by fear.
Fear of failure is definitely a biggie for me. I am a perfectionist and plan to succeed when I attempt something. My defense mechanism became just saying no to anything I saw as a strong potential for failure. As I have gotten older I have learned to just say yes if I see the possibility of positive growth, coupled with the potential for failure. Once I say yes, then I will find a way to turn it into a success, no matter what! I won’t settle for failure, so I put all I can into it. Sure, I fail, but I try more things now and I try to find the lessons in failure so I can turn it into a success (at least in my eyes!)
So where do we draw the line and say, I am just feeling an emotion. I plan to feel it, use it, remember it and move on. As performers we are asked to pull up past feelings all of the time. If we dull down our feelings and chalk everything up to fear where does that leave us? I have worked hard to not let fear stop me from things that could be positive, but pay more attention to the primal fear I sometimes feel for no reason I can see. If I open a door and feel fear in the dark hallway, I turn around and walk away. How many horror movies start with someone going on in to the basement even though the hair on their arm stood up as they opened the door?? Not me! I respect my fear! But I will not live by fear.
