I remember feeling fear acutely when I was a kid. Funny rides like the jumpy horse with a spring in parks were scary. What if I broke my nose? What if I didn’t fit in the horse seat?
I would look on, terrified of the so-called little kids’ rides. The large cartoon costumes running around malls and theme parks were also scary. No wonder adults made horror movies of menacing dolls and motionless inanimate objects. But somehow, they were supposed to be cute to kids.
Anyway.
As polite as I was, I was ashamed to be a kid. I hid my tears and made no noise when I cried. I expressed my grief, fear and anger to my mum and mum alone. A red face with a river of tears. The only tactic I used to get what I wanted.
Now that I think about it, fear never left me. It followed me closely wherever I went.
Entering grade 4 wasn’t easy. I didn’t know how to describe it at the time. I think it was fear. It must have been. All the kids spoke with each other fluently in English, whereas I could barely follow their conversation. They even knew how to debate, convince and coalesce teachers, and make arguments for themselves. It felt like they were already ahead in life while I, a shy boy, sat quietly in a corner.
This feeling never left me. People always breezing by ahead of me in life. People graduating early, getting jobs before me, figuring out life, travelling around the world, getting into relationships, and getting married. Everybody’s ahead of me.
I looked at them. I kept looking at them. When I didn’t know what to do, I always felt silent. I wondered how they were so smart and sophisticated in 4th grade. I never asked why they were smart and not me; I was smart enough not to pity me. Rather, I wanted to appreciate how they came about the way they were (was it over-parenting?). It never impressed me, really—the loud, outspoken kids. I kinda disliked them. They were not my type of people. It was just that they caught attention. The attention of teachers, parents, me, the principal, etc. They were my society, after all, so I had to deal with them despite my disinterest.
In the end, who cares? School finished somehow. When I came to university in a foreign land (Canada), I faced fear again. Here, the problem was that I needed to do it all. It was rough to figure out so much on my own. Renting, cleaning, and the never-ending obligation to feed oneself. As a 20-year-old, I hadn’t gotten enough answers to my “Whys,” so that was my mission at the time—to find answers to some major questions. I realized I didn’t have the luxury to waste my opportunity. I was not sure if I really deserved to be in the country’s best university or not, but I knew I was there. So I made sure I found answers to at least some of the “Whats,” like “What should I do to make a living?”, “What should I study and why?”, “What is an argument?”, “What is philosophy?” and “What should I do after graduation?”
Fear struck me at every step. Taking the first philosophy class was scary. Brutal college math humbled the brightest kids. I did not consider myself bright, but the students around me were bright. Academic ruthlessness, where you had to prove everything to the last dot. What a rollercoaster that was. Only after the logic courses did I finally find an answer to the question, “What is an argument?” There, I also learned, “What is proof?” Mastering those two “Whats” is perhaps my greatest accomplishment so far.
College was brutal. What was more brutal was not knowing that friendship didn’t happen naturally after high school. I spent my entire college years making exactly one friend—a guy who didn’t believe in unnecessary socializing. Which meant I did nothing besides studying, shitting and eating. Such bleak days.
But fear worked out well, so it seems. I ended up choosing the right degree. Philosophy somehow remained in my life. It’s not all glamorous. Today, I am facing an endless circle of fear as an adult. What if someone dies… what happens? Do I have any dreams? Is the dream still alive or is it dead? How do I keep it alive? What to do about relationships? Who to marry? What’s going to happen?
The unknown has not stopped being scary, even though I’ve spent my lifetime going into it. Every time, the unknown has accepted me: philosophy, Canada, the corporate world, friendship. But the fear remains: What if the next unknown doesn’t? What do I do then?
