Some people say what we fear most is fear itself. Things, what things evoke fear in me? All my life there has always been an uneasy feeling, something to do with the unknown. I think and feel fear sometimes, its not to do with anything I know. Its alright to be aware of most I can be afraid of, yet knowing the thing I might fear, it being explained, somehow then loses all its fearful power.

And feelings about people have a lot to do with my fears, it comes from childhood insecurities I guess. As a kid, there was always an uneasy feeling about the state of things, life was never easy for my parents. Hard working and striving, living through the boom times of the 1960’s, their lives were certainly driven, mainly by my father who had a rage inside him, and good reason.

Maybe some of us are prone to these feelings of fear, some awareness and perception of things changing, not always to the good and if we know with change comes less happy times, then our radar inside us, that perception to loss of happiness makes for general unease. As a kid though and without a mature head on young shoulders all we know is instability and likely changes lead to unhappy change.

I don’t know how true this may be. Changes in life though, well they were always and have remained constant. Growth, is inevitable from change. If we go with the changes we adapt, as we adapt our ability to deal with change grows too.

I am very adaptable, yet changes I experience may be less than desirable and the changes I experience make me feel less desirable to some if not most of the time. My changes have afforded growth, my changes have led to prejudice of me by others. And if I were feeling less attractive because of them, then I might lose a sense of myself, my esteem and confidence about being me.

If I were to value myself by others measures of being known, the measures any ordinary person from ordinary life might assume as their normal way of judging the connection to another human, then there are some deficits in the knowing of yours truly.

So in human terms, my growth and adaptability is high, my ability to deal with change is greater, my fear of fear itself is less, for I know more and fear less. I understand human nature far more than contemporaries, my outlook is improving with knowledge and experience. My capacity to love more easily connected, my love of all things human and human beings much more accessible. Acceptance of life on life’s terms efficient, to the point where I understand all manner of human doings, why people are the way they are, and their strengths and frailties. Experience of living has afforded great wisdoms to motivation, understanding and beyond the superficial we encounter. I see inside the windows of the soul of life. Connection to our spiritual enigma is cleared with all life has given me. And this journey is improving through growth without the fears many would experience at the first steps to enlightened outlooks.

Yet in the knowing and wisdom, the open outlook to all change and that fear we must all acknowledge, not only of death for that is one to confront, it is the fear of living we can find so frightful. It is the fear of being worth it. That we are worthy of love and being loved for who we are, that is the real fear, as the song title goes, knowing me knowing you, aha… And what we find is most fear is about being loved, or not as the case may be.

When we strip away the material and get to the spiritual, when we move beyond the physical and get down to our emotional core, we have need to be loved. And life makes it extremely difficult to segregate and separate our true worth, for we often measure merely on the surface of life. We forget our human qualities in our consuming passion of physicality and material well being.

We need every element we have to improve our adaptability. And we see how a blind person develops extraordinary perceptions with other senses. As one is afflicted with a deficit, then another sense grows as experience enables an adaption to the new reality. And behind the change growth necessarily occurs. Half from fear, to be able to cope, and half from nature as we compensate.

And for those with brain power to work these things out, we value the full range of human qualities we encounter in one and all. We see beyond the superficial and beyond the scars of life. Or we enshrine our prejudice in judgment and perceptions.

We know too our value, and we know with greater clarity when we are used or ignored as some will do, taking our best and then discarding our whole once they are satisfied and then discard us.

We do this often when we are young and experimenting, we make friends have lovers and find what we are attracted to and discard what we learn to be against our best interest. And we do most these things without care or attention. We do these things automatically, as nature intended. For family and nature teach us so.

Our blind prejudice of life is as easy to understand in natures terms as an animal that is wounded or in animal born to be the runt of the litter. It gets second best whatever happens and it survives and might be tolerated to an extent, yet never quite makes it to be the equal of life or living equally. We humans for all our humanity can make these prejudicial judgments. And for those so judged, life is more challenging in personal terms and sometimes less challenging in the eyes of others, because less is expected or sought.

For those with more changes than the average to deal with, the adage of what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, it can apply, and it often does, because to overcome prejudice per se, on going day to day is a sharper and clearer requirement to acceptance by others. And if we accept others judgment of us we fall down, as the answer to acceptance love and fulfilment is our own personal judgment and joy in living to our best whatever that may be.

Fears and changes go hand in hand. If we learn the critical judgments we can make they have to do with our way of seeing our life, our world and what we do with it. Most fear comes from the fear others generate. And their reaction to us openly and the very worst their rejection of us in friendship and love and their passive rejection, and often their blind prejudice.

Not many people sit and think about these things unless they have reason, simply because our lives are busy with just plain old living. And we never get to the root of fears, especially the ones we connect to our spiritual core. And this is where faith binds us and can sometimes release us to greater and more profound ways of living and making sense of the world.

We fear what we do not know and understand less our reactions to it. Because it makes us weak in our own eyes. A part of living is denial of fear itself as we value bravery and endeavour. The truth is, those who are most fearful will often do the most profound acts to overcome their fright, and in our folklore they become heroes for that incident which overcomes the human aversion to risk in the light of life threatening odds.

Odd we do everything for love, and at the same time it is love which we fear most often. Or is it? Examine your love of yourself, what you value in your living and what you use to judge your personal esteem. How you love yourself. Then apply the same measures to those you love, those you revere as peer and equal as friends and loved ones and if you have one, your lover.

Your measures of value change if you are challenged and you start to see how blind prejudice makes us uneasy. For nature teaches us from birth what is attractive in humans to you and me, nurture puts emphasis on certain elements at different times in our lives, and we develop conscious prejudice of our love of self and others.

We are complicated in our fears. The most important fear to overcome and so move on and along our time in this world, it is the fear of ourselves. Fear we might not measure up and fear we might be rejected. When we embrace change and make the best of every moment, we recognise truly, for every door closed, one opens when we keep on looking. When we close the door to our own self, our door can be shut forever and we wither. We need keep our door to ourselves open, where we find our rejection in one part of life, we find ourselves welcomed to another.

Let good conscience be our guide, as we make good our connection to each day. And when life stinks, its as useful as life being the best. It gives us the edge to know the difference. However long we live, we always live in the present moment, our reaction to it over in the blink of an eye. Some moments change us forever, be careful one moment in time neither spoils or sets a standard we may never experience again. Experience itself, wisdom and change bring every opportunity to get balance in our outlook as every moment changes everything.

Fear, and me, well I would not be without my fears, for if I were, I might treat myself badly and as bad, I might treat you the same. Fear, keeps me aware of danger, if I had been less fearless I would have expired long ago. Fearless people deny what keeps them alert to danger, do miraculous things achieve death faster and mostly for others, which can be for the greater good. And I too have done a fair stint in the martyr department, my achievements there forgotten and gone to dust as most fearless end up. I welcome my fears as natural and right sized, I am their equal, and the equal of living in the ever present, present.

Let those who would war in this modern world, be the first to arm, let them lead armies, from the front, let them lay down their lives as heroes, first amongst warring equals. Those who war on others, they should strike first with their own hand, and be feel the truth of their conviction and be judged on their own might. While this extra paragraph came from writing my reflections this morning, I experienced a moment of rage at our world leaders who despatch to their deaths many of their own citizens in the name of… What? Those who would war, they have no business as leaders in our modern world, they are pariahs and offer no solutions to our world. I would see them exemplars of wasted lives in their war passions. I would prefer them dead in battle to leading from their safe vantage of righteous denial and piety. They hold humanity back from peace and growth.