The fear I see in others comes from going into retreat from the world. Retreat is a place of wanting nothing to change, only steady rhythms of beating clocks and whirring machines. Nothing in this world is steady so why retreat?
Pictures are the worst for me
Young people are taught to fear the tumult of existence in the classroom. Take teaching english at school. The english starts with words like run, swim, and play; not grow, react, love. This is a choice made by the teacher to think about static words not expansive words. Static words are a retreat from the tumultuous goings on of each day. Teachers are fearful of young people but they teach fear at the same time. Fear is contagious. Young people could be encouraged to use expansive words.
The only way to eclipse fear is to embrace the tumultuous goings on of each day like each day is a new start. Repeating the fear of each day is a cage for the lost. Lost in repeating the static words of the class. I can’t repeat anything so start everyday like it is an opening into a cave of doubt. Doubt is my repetition to return to the classroom of fear. Fear repeats like my doubt repeats, over and over again.
Doubt is a reaction to the unknown not an emotional response to tumult. My doubt when returning to the class is the struggle I have with concentrating on static words and pictures. Pictures are the worst for me. They are read like they are tumultuous but pictures are static windows on the world. Words are less static because you can’t see what they mean. I make meaning by reading words; understanding their meaning through my experience of the world. Words are my fear because they are a retreat into steady rhythms of clacking keys and banging spacebars.