come_to_think

Conflict. I don't know how to handle it, and expect to be humiliated. So I run away if I can. But I have once or twice moved in on trouble because I couldn't imagine doing anything else.

Falling. I am not afraid of height as such (e.g., being in an airplane, looking down a cliff over a wall), but of (perceived) exposure. Looking down thru a grating is particularly unnerving. Climbing without having something to hold onto, I will be paralyzed with fright. This has gotten noticeably worse over the years. About 45 years ago I actually tried to learn to rockclimb. I took refuge in being unable to imagine the next move.

Failure of imagination is a weak form of courage and a strong form of cowardice.

A change in the political situation. Knowledge of 20th-century politics, especially in Europe but also in America, has weighed in on me the fact that it is not just criminals that are in danger from the police. I have always half supposed that someday I shall be in prison. During my life, however, my political, religious, and sexual deviations have actually become steadily less dangerous. That has led me to the notion that I should, as a sort of moral hygiene, use such a period of calm to fool myself into assuring (by putting myself on record) that when the forces of evil triumph I shall surely be on the losing side.

I was going to pick something I am ashamed of, among the hundreds of such things that come to mind. But that's not the same as regret. For one thing, shame is only an emotion; it doesn't prove you were wrong, any more than being proud proves you were right. In order to regret something, I would have to imagine that it could have been otherwise, and for the better. I can't think of any action of mine that actually made any difference. Even when I have managed to hurt people (which AFAIK is rare), it is hard to know whether it would have improved the world if I hadn't. I suppose I could say I regret my character defects, tho they have always been there, and it is hard to imagine life without them.

Well, then, cowardice. I am terrified of conflict. This seems to be mainly due to incompetence at losing gracefully, tho it must have been exacerbated by pacifist propaganda in childhood. I make up for it by frequent fantasies of outrageous behavior, which distract me from shame. I wrote in my journal 7 January 1997:

Emotions: Continual hate fantasies (every few minutes) all morning. In almost all such fantasies, my offendedness & offensiveness are a surprise to their object. This suggested to me, some time ago, an explanation for them in addition to the mere fact that they are a distraction from shame & fear. Namely, it seems likely that in childhood I once gave offense to someone unintentionally & was mortified to find that I had done so (a Freudian would say, all the more so in that I had unconsciously willed the offense), and that, in my fantasies, I am trying to avoid a recurrence of the surprise by giving offense deliberately. Of course, there is also mixed in a wish to be punished, due to shame at being spoiled. Finally, there is also overcompensation for shame at not having kept up my side in past conflicts.

I have sometimes thought that if I had been plunged into a fearful environment in childhood, I might have been forced to fend for myself. At times in my life I have had fantasies of doing so (joining the army, emigrating to Israel), but of course, I never dared. Later on, at age 40, I was bowled over by reading Captains Courageous: maybe all it takes is falling overboard & getting punched in the nose. %^)

Or, one could say, I regret that I am alive.

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Entries tagged with fear

Day 26 -- My fears, in great detail

Day 19 -- Something I regret, in great detail

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November 2022

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