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EXISTENTIAL FEAR

Everyone is afraid of something. What is it that you are afraid of? Not spiders, or heights or water. I don’t mean things like that [although I do fear heights and water]. Think more deeply. What is it that truly and fundamentally terrifies you?

For me, I fear being a coward.

To be faced with a challenge in life and not measure up, that’s what terrifies me.

I fear that I might fail to protect my wife, though even at my age and state of decrepitness, my thirty-eight years of martial arts training might stand me in good stead, for a short time, at least. I figure about ninety seconds.

But my cowardice could manifest as me being immobilized by self-pity over some crisis or other when I should wish to remain strong for my family, a rock of strength for them.

Simple, daily life can be more arduous than we care to credit. The mundane can drive a man around the bend or even to his end. A man must deal with the frustration of earning a living, not getting that promotion, not making enough money, always kowtowing to the company for fear of losing that income and the illusion of security that comes with it.

The continual grind, the Sisyphus-like existence forced upon us, most of us anyway, is exhausting! It certainly requires a form of courage to face that soul-sucking, life-numbing task of going to work everyday to a job that is nothing more than a paycheque, a means to an end.

At my age, it is this drone existence that I fear may well wear me down to the point where I wish to throw in the towel. No, not to die, nothing that dramatic! I mean simply to give up my responsibilities to my family, to quit my job.


I say “man,” not to diminish the female or to lend some greater importance to the male role in our society but rather as a male, it is the perspective from which I view things in the world, it is the social construct that was instilled in me growing up and as such nothing is unmanlier than being a coward.

And as a man, I shouldn’t wish to be thought of as being unintelligent, lacking in compassion for others, brutish, or violent. That is to me a type of cowardice; a failure in one’s character to act in a compassionate and reasoned manner for fear it does not convey strength.

Nor would I wish, as a man, from a man’s perspective, to be thought of as indecisive, incompetent, or incapable of reaching for what it is I desire. That is to me another form of cowardice, the fear to live one’s life as one’s own.

Ego drives us all. From a male perspective, much of what we do as males seems to be ego driven. I would not wish to be egotistical for ego run rampant can cause bad decisions. But nor would I want to be ignored, psychologically invisible, or have decisions made for me by my wife; for I do have an ego and my ego is that delicate.

I am married to a strong and intelligent woman. I would have it no other way. And ego drives her equally as it does me. I claim responsibility for my own decisions and I know my wife does the same. I would not presume to make a decision for her. She is responsible for her destiny as I am to mine.

As far as the issue of cowardice is concerned, failing to meet life’s challenges with aplomb and competence or worse, shirking one’s responsibilities altogether, is what I fear most.

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