Issue No. 7:
Fear is a beast with many children: laziness, perfectionism, paralysis, hedonism, anger and denial are among the most well known. And fear can be slippery, showing up in ways you never expected it to - in your suddenly sharp tone when your partner brings up their ex, in the way you surprise yourself by refusing to acknowledge your friend's success that you wanted for yourself, in the way you just might inexplicably dislike the person who everyone loves, in the way you use work as an excuse not to get close to that person who so clearly adores you. Fear can make us petty and indulgent, explosive and nonsensical, erratic. As Michaela Coel said “We can put fear of the future in front of us to block us, or behind us to drive us forward.” In spite of all of this - I’m not someone who’s ever going to try to sell you on fearlessness, and, in fact, It is my belief that the attempt to to do is criminally disingenuous. We are human, we have fear, there’s nothing wrong with its existence in general - it's the thing that kept your stone age ancestors alive in the gruesome world they lived in. It's the denial that's leads to the real issues. When we attempt to deny our fears we deny ourselves the chance to learn how to navigate them. Fear is very rarely gracefully hidden or avoided, and the notion of fearlessness more often than not is an attempt to look superhuman to sell people on something, and it typically inhibits creativity because it demands perfection. I think the far more triumphant stories are ones where someone was likely scared beyond their imagination but acted anyway.
Over time I've learned to let fear inform me of how important something is to me. Many of the best and most defining moments in my life started as moments of sheer terror: my first trip to Japan (alone, deeply and noticeably foreign without any language skills) ,playing my first solo as a musician, the first time allowing myself to trust after heartbreak, moving out of my parents house and straight into the belly of the New York beast. I went into all of these moments gripped tightly in anxiety's fist, feeling paralyzed but somehow getting through it. Chief among these is the moment I decided to see what life might be like if I took myself seriously as a photographer. I was, and remain to this day - terrified to take some of my best photos.
When I go out to take photos I am, without fail, completely useless for the first 30 minutes to an hour. It’s after only once I’ve become more frustrated with myself for missing shots than fearful of approaching that things start happening. During The Fear I watch lots of life unfold. I watch lots of beautiful moments happen, and I imagine what they'd look like as prints and how proud I would have been if I'd taken that shot. I become angry with myself. My inner voice starts acting up - I have my Taxi Driver moment with myself. I have my “are you seriously going to go home with no photos and your tail tucked between your legs?!” moment. And then, with my fear still firmly in place, I decide to do it anyway. I decide that what I'm doing is more important than how scared I am to do it.
When I first moved out here to start my life occasionally someone from high school would ask me how I did any of this, anticipating a story full of grace and wisdom when in reality the answer is - I did it broke, afraid, and kicking and screaming. But the point, in the end, it that I did it. I figure it does people more good to hear that it's possible for them to achieve the things the want to in life and that it's possible to do so, taking your fears and insecurities with you. I know that as I go on this way, the fear may get quieter, but it will never truly go away, and that's fine, because without resistance we cannot feel our strength. Sometimes things shouldn't be effortless. Sometimes it means more to look at the spoils of victory and remember all that it took to overcome your fear and make something happen.
