It looks to me as if Iris needs some training in learning to live without fear.
And if she’s not interested in even trying it, well then, she doesn’t
really want to get rid of her alleged agoraphobia, as she finds it a good means of attracting attention and sympathy.
Now, myself being a deaf person in a hearing world, since infancy (born without ears) I’ve qualified for a Ph.D. in fear. If something exists—God being an exception—it’s likely that I’ve been afraid of it before. I can’t think of a thing I now like, or still don’t like, of which I wasn’t at some time terrorized by it.
My God, I've even been afraid of peaches before.
If one can’t hear, the world can get hostile at times, sometimes doubly so.
However, people who know franksolich in real life insist I’m about the most risk-taking individual they’ve met in their lifes, seemingly afraid of nothing that confronts me.
It’s all a sham, a show, as I’m just a good actor. There’s a reason I prefer to wear brown pants.
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But whether bravado or true grit, I’ve always looked at things I fear the same way I look at the weather in Nebraska. If it doesn’t kill me, it’ll at least make me a stronger (or better) person.
The best way of dealing with, eliminating, fear is to confront it, and contemptuously dare it to hurt you.
If one’s afraid of water for example, the best remedy is to simply jump in, after which one decides if he wants to live, or drown. I can personally and first-handedly swear on the Head of St. John the Baptist that this actually works.
<<<am no masochist—no way—but to grow up, to get mature, sometimes one has to be harsh, really harsh, on oneself.
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I already wrote about it a few summers ago, right after it happened, but anyway one time the neighbor and I were “exploring†an old abandoned dirt-cellar on the this property (since filled in). It was pretty big—for a cellar—and dark in there.
I put my hand on a ledge--but fortunately not too hard--that was higher than my head, and within a macro-second, I felt I was about to grab a snake. Like in one ten-thousandth of a second, I realized that.
What to do? It was dark and I had no idea what sort of snake it was.
Best to not do anything until it went away. So I “froze,†just standing there not moving a muscle, and I could feel it slithering away, “scraping†or brushing the palm of the hand.
Once it was gone, I unfroze. I always wondered what would’ve happened if I’d done the instinctual thing and quickly yanked my hand back. I suspect it wouldn’t have ended so well.
Acquiring nerves of steel serves one well in battling fear.
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One also has to acquire and cultivate some sort of self-deprecating humor; to not let
gaffes and other careless social blunders ruin one’s life.
<<<an expert at the quick back-track, quick to apologize, quick to concede when the other person is right and I’m wrong, and it bothers me not at all to do it.
Nobody’s perfect, everybody makes mistakes, but one of the major differences between franksolich and the primitives is that I forgive myself for being human, while they don’t.
If God can forgive me, I should be able to forgive myself.
The problem with the primitives of course being that they sneer at the Reality of God, and hence they got no one to forgive them their imperfections.
It must be Hell, being a primitive, and not being perfect; I screw up all the time, but yet I manage to live a decent and civilized life.
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Think of the most embarrassing, the most humiliating thing that can happen; something that would usually drive one to run away and hide his head in shame.
For example, there’s been those countless times I’ve awakened in the morning and walked into the kitchen, only to find someone, sometimes a stranger, or some people, in there, but because I’m deaf I had no idea anyone was inside the house, period.
It used to be a rude shock. But I got used to it eons ago and now carry on as if there’s nothing embarrassing about me being stark naked in front of other people. And if they’re known to be—or appear to be, if strangers—easily offended, I take my time about getting decorous.
Trust me; one can learn to be utterly cool and nonchalant even under these circumstances; after all, I don't know anybody else who hasn't made a fool of himself one time or another.
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At the moment, the only thing that causes me any anxiety is the fear of Atman; a fear so strong it deters franksolich from venturing into eastern Connecticut.
It’s true that Atman of Skins’s island is a sissy-boy, but not to everybody.
Just about anybody’s four-year-old nephew could beat up the effete Atman, but while I look big and strong and all that, it’s just an appearance. In truth, the internal infrastructure is so weak, so fragile, that even sissy-boy Atman could beat up franksolich, stomp me into a little red spot in the ground.
I consider Atmaphobia a legitimate fear, possibly even enough to get me a ticket aboard the social security disability gravy-train.
