The Cooking Recipe Of Fear

How to be a bad chef

I woke up this morning and saw a post on my social media feed.

What is your biggest fear when it comes to your life?

Easy question, said the Aries in me. I clicked on comments, my phone keyboard appeared but, quite the opposite of my intentions, the words were still sleeping in. That cannot be I said, I’m proud to call myself a writer, I should have the words. I tried to type a few things, snake, seclusion, disappointing others, and more gore stuff but I ended up scraping them. So I decided to take a peek, maybe other answers will jog my inspiration.

Failing, Trust, Betrayal, Loneliness, and many more. There was even a citation from the life of one of America’s greatest inventors.

Thomas Edison was more afraid of the dark than anything else, so he invented the light bulb.

I don’t know if that sentence is true, but if it is, there’s one thing I know for sure: I envy him. I’ll tell you why at the end.

Fear, The Recipe

Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or a threat — Google.

I find that definition to be quite good, but incomplete. To grab the full perspective of fear we have to dig deeper into its own concept. We have to look through those same words, those ingredients used in the attempt to define it.

Emotion

Like love, anger, and sadness, fear is also an emotion. This means it has triggers and amplifiers.

To start a fire you need oxygen and a spark, those are the triggers, the context, and the object. For that fire to fully form and grow, you need a combustible and a chemical reaction, those are the amplifiers, your memories, and your response.

Take any of these things away and the emotion will disappear.

I love water, it’s my soothing element. When the fire the Aries in me burns too hot, this is where I go. I submerge myself in the noise of the ripples and I go down, enjoying the quiet of the deep. But what I didn’t tell you yet is that I don’t know how to swim, I never learned.

Because of that, every time I go near a pool, a river, or even at the beach, anxiety comes for me. When I jump on a boat, a pedalo or worse, those inflatable balloons, the first thing I think is how I will drown.

My head then starts working, searching through its archives the notes it took on the subject. It finds that pool party, not even one year ago, where little adventurous me struggled to reach the corner. It goes deeper and finds another one, where I used all my survival instincts to get out of the water, while the others were diving in with a splash.

For quite some time I was afraid to go near a pool or things of the like, I still am, in some way. It’s not easy to change them both triggers and amplifiers, but we can try, and it starts by having a closer look at them.

The context is the environment you’re in, at a pool party with friends, strangers, alcohol, and no swimming skill. The object of fear is deep water. The memories are the seeds, the reasons why you’re afraid, the adventurer in me in a couple of accidents. The response is your reaction to all those elements combined.

To change the context you might want to remove alcohol out of the equation or go learn how to swim if the situation gives you the time for it. I can’t restrain my love for water but maybe I can steer clear when it’s too deep. I cannot alter my memories but I can understand why it happened and do my best not to be in the same situation again. Finally, with those 3, I can choose how to react.

Belief

Fear cannot exist without it. If I’m afraid of snakes it’s because I know they are dangerous and I believe they can hurt me.

Some beliefs are absolute truth, If I jump out of the window on my tenth-floor apartment I sure can believe I won’t make it out in one piece. Others are made up by our minds, sometimes by society. I’m afraid to have no lover and no friends cause then I believe I would join the ranks of the outcasts.

Our fears are linked to our beliefs, to our comprehension of the world. That’s why we’re all afraid of the unknown, afraid to take risks, to be vulnerable, to ask for help, and so much more.

We ought to remember that the world is a place far too big to know all of its secrets, but we can learn some.

I used to be afraid of spiders. Eight legs, weird eyes, and venom! Spiderman is cool but I saw movies where that bite turned wrong, in my life too. Around 10 years old, in my schoolyard we had that corner, woods, weeds, and trees. We loved to play there until one of those arachnids pulled its fangs in one of us.

Cold sweat, emesis, respiratory failures, cramps, it wasn’t an easy sight to bear.

He lived, but after that day and for a long time, I was afraid of spiders for life, any kind of those little hairy things. It’s only when I learned the truth that all spiders are not venomous and we can recognize them by their color that I stopped being afraid.

“Fear is the lengthened shadow of ignorance.” — Arnold Glasow

Since then, when I’m afraid of something, I take out my books, give a ping to my friend Google or pick up my phone, and I try to learn more about it.

Likely

“We are more often frightened than hurt, and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.” — Seneca

I wake up at 4:30 am, I start my morning routine with my Ted Talk workout. A few stretches, planks, and push-ups later I find myself on my couch, laptop in front but cell phone on hand. I send a text.

5:13 a.m., she usually sleeps late, maybe she’ll answer.

8 a.m., she was already asleep, she’ll answer when she wakes up

Noon, is she still sleeping?

2 p.m., she doesn’t want to answer me, okay. It’s her choice, we all have the right to do what we want. You do you right? Let me do me.

2:03 p.m., she texts back. She did not go to work last night, she fell sick so she slept early. In the morning it was better but not quite there yet, so she slept in. She tried to pick up her phone but the light and the pixels were too much for the fever and her eyes so she put it back. When she was finally able to get herself back together, you were the first she answered.

Likeliness.

Now, that doesn’t mean everything will always work out in the end. Sometimes likely things do happen and our fears then come true. In those situations, we have to know that the only thing we can control is ourselves. If someone wants to do something, it is their decision. If someone wanted to do something and did it, it was also their decision. Do not let others’ actions dictate your emotions, especially when they’re negatives.

If God bestowed upon you the gift of patience, please do so. If he didn’t, try to get out of the unknown. If you still can’t, you have to accept that you’re not in control and that whatever happens would have happened.

Pain

Fear’s old friend, I like to call this one. Always together, they can hardly be separated. Pain is often in the front, eager to lead the fear that comes behind him. Both, little kids playing with each other.

While doing my research, there’s this quote that resonated with me.

“Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out.” — Karl Augustus Menninger

Before my first break up, I was chasing love. A torch in one hand and a map on the other, I was ready to be an archeologist, take Indiana Jones seat and unearth that coup de foudre we all see at Hollywood.

I lived through the hardships of the beginning, the watching, the trying, the destroying, the overcoming, the knowing, and the loving. I survived through the sorrow of the ending, the doubting, the ripping, the disappointing, the thinking, the despising, and the hurting.

It got educated into me, I spent one year with the door to my heart closed.

The thing about pain is that we have to know that there will always be Pain.

Life is painful. For some, going to sleep is painful, for others it’s waking up. Therefore, we have to accept that life comes with pain. And if Pain is part of life, why fear it? let’s welcome it, we will grow even higher.

So, What’s Your Biggest Fear?

When I first saw that question and looked at the answers, I envied Thomas Edison. He knew his biggest fear, I don’t even know all of mine.

I’m pretty sure there’s no single fear that outshines all others. And that’s coming from someone who lived through a traumatic event, close to death as a worm is to the ground.

We fear many things. Here it might be winter, I’m outside with no shelter. There it might be summer, I’m inside with no air conditioner. Yesterday I may have failed at something, today I may have disappointed myself, tomorrow I may fuck up big time.

Our biggest fear is not always the same each day. If it is, then you’re not experiencing enough of life. Sometimes with reason, other times not so much.

If I had to choose one, my biggest fear would be to stop growing cause then I believe I wouldn’t be able to face all the fears that have yet to come.