four fears

I have been thinking about fears for this post and I figure that late in the night is a good time to be writing the post because it's when I'm usually very honest about things. The following happened to me last night.

Sometimes when I think too much I get very scared and wonder whether I'll get myself into some universal trouble. And if I think something too deep or clever I worry my brain will spasm or I'll have a stroke or something and I will die. Because one minute people are alive and the next they are dead.

I wrote that down after I finished feeling scared and reading it back I guess it's a bit vague. I often think about life and how very small and insignificant I am and that I will die. One time I was in my local video store and this mum was in there with a bunch of kids (hers and some extras I presume) and they were playing with a ball talking about how they were never going to die like it was a contest. "Nah, I'm not going to die", "NOOOO! I'm not!". And I will never forget a conversation I had with my friend Erin when we were much younger. We were convinced that by the time we got older they'd invent a pill that allowed you to live forever. I don't want to live forever; there are heaps of things I am looking forward to about getting older. I suspect it's just the largeness of the universe and so on that is frightening for me. It's all intertwined, this death/universe/life/philosophy/existing thing. I can't separate it or find a discrete factor that specifically frightens me. It's a combination, you see.

Tonight I went to a talk by Stephen Fry and he said some marvelous things, one of which seems slightly relevant at this point in my post: he mentioned being on the show "Who do you think you are?" which, as most people will know, was about tracing ancestry. Apparently they didn't tell him anything about his family history, they just researched it for months then called and said "bring your passport"! Fascinating. Anyway he remarked how we mostly fixate upon the relatives who are responsible for our surname, which, he said, is odd, given that from our parents we have two grandparents and between those grandparents there would be eight great-grandparents, each of those great-grandparents having pairs of parents of course; so the multiples do increase on and on into the thousands. All these people are responsible for our existence, which would simply not have been possible without them. Stephen then went on to say that if one had English parentage, one would most certainly have been related to Henry the Fourth. Said he, at that time, most of us would have over four thousand potential living relatives and taking into account how vogue incest was at the time, it was not altogether unlikely that one would have been in some way a part of his bloodline. I am very glad that Stephen mentioned this because I have often thought to myself that most people must be related to each other in some way (within reason of course, I suppose I'm talking anglo here) due to one thing or another. It's good to have it confirmed. He also did some very amusing impressions of his friends Hugh Laurie and Rowan Atkinson. He began anecdotes about his friends coyly but we, the audience, were so clever we figured it out and made sure to gush and ooh as we realised that the next anecdote was to be about meeting Emma Thompson at Cambridge or how utterly enthralling it was that Stephen is able to address Kenneth Branagh simply as Ken.

Digressions aside, another fear that I noted down today, with a small introduction.

I go to the bookstore with the best intentions. I'm sorry Tao Lin & Josephine Rowe & Italo Calvino & Jean Rhys & Jonathan Safran Foer, you will have to wait to change my life. Turns out I'll only allow myself a coffee from the adjoining cafe. The rest of my purchases must be visual only. 

I think I've gotten so used to being unable to afford things (heartbreak). Now I'm so disillusioned about actually owning or having things I never fully invest in anything at all. This must be why my mum never buys anything expensive.

Debunked, this is the fear that I will always remain detached from my life. I do so often feel as if I'm watching myself, like things are just unfolding and I am reacting without much thought. A minor fear is that I can't finish reading books. Maybe I will never finish reading all those books I buy at secondhand stores. It can't help that I spend half my day in bed with Seinfeld dvds.

In addition to seeing Stephen Fry earlier this evening, at uni we had to attend a talk by Robert Rosen, a documentary/filmmaker/former dean at UCLA. I figured it would be boring as I'm not really into documentary and film, being a radio/wordsmith type, but went along because I have an inherent sense of duty like that. Incidentally, and the reason why I bring it up now, both he and Stephen had the good sense to bring up the question of storytelling. Stephen said he always knew his life would be intertwined with words in some way, that he would always have a connection to storytelling. Robert Rosen said that as media makers we have to find stories that people, not just our parents and friends, will want to hear. When Robert said that I stopped composing the letter I'd begun to my friend in England and paid attention. My next fear is

that I will never write anything worthwhile

I am here pretending that I'm a writer, using words to convey things to you right now. If you've persevered to the end of this I applaud you! But I wonder, how do I write something that moves people? Connects? Angers? Enthralls? Do I even have to? I want to improve my poetry writing skills but all I write about is how I can't write poetry and I know how cliched that gets. I fear I will never work out what other people want to read. It is only coincidental, I suppose, that both Robert and Stephen mentioned storytelling to me (well, and others, if we're being honest) in the space of forty hours, but nevertheless, as something I frequently mull over, it has heightened my sense of anxiety about storytelling and what I fear is my inability to do it.