The Taste of Fear

Fear is not something I believe many modern Americans taste very often. Oh, certainly, they taste the discomfort of a job interview or review, the uneasiness that accompanies standing up before a group of people to present some information, or the general queasiness of receiving the direct attention of strangers. Some do, of course, possess pathologies and suffer from excruciating forms for fear. But for the vast majority of us, fear is something we've done away with, a primitive, basic emotion that has evolved into a more modern caution and insularity. Americans don't like fear very much at all -- for esthetic reasons. It's a dirty, uncomfortable emotion.

Which is why I find myself quite surprised by the intense level of fear I am experiencing in my daily life. I mean mouth-drying, stomach-churning fear. The fear one feels before leaping off the abyss.

Why? I am seriously contemplating a complete and utter career change. I am considering a blind-charge into a career that I have no formal training for, but which I dream about, have dreamt about since I was a child, and which I may have some talent for. I am contemplating abandoning the cushy paychecks of a job I otherwise find dreary and unfulfilling for a stab at the unknown and unknowable.

And, boy, am I scared.

The Case for Wierdness

As many things in my life begin, this began with a dream. I dreamed I was making a movie.

Rewind - A very long time ago, I made several movies. Five minute silent films with my father's Super8 camera. I made primitve attempts at stop motion photography and other ultra-naive attemps at special effects. I directed my friends in a film about a desperate battle against a child-eating, red-white-and-blue basketball from outer space that shot laser beams at its victims. The laser beams came courtesy of my father's permanent markers and scribbling directly on the film. Believe it or not, the beams came out pretty well. And, I made music videos to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and that awful disco warhorse The Fifth of Beethoven, both well-received during a middle-school era talent contest long before MTV existed. Childhood pleasures, to be sure, but ones that have lingered long after they should have been wiped away by the passions, cares and worries of adulthood.

Fast-forward - What movie I was making in that dream, I don't know. What it was about, I don't know. But, I had fun doing it. I went to work at the Salt Mine that day, thinking about it in a low-key way. As I logged in for business and my Instant Messaging client come up, I got a friendly message from El Grande which sent my life skipping out of its well-worn rut:

Blu, your dreams will set you free.

Synchronicity happens. Within the day I'd spoken with a co-worker who possessed over $10, 000 of professional HD-Digital film making and editing equipment he used to document family and friends, but didn't feel he had the talent to use creatively. I approached him bluntly, asking him to come to the breakroom for a meeting. He thought it was about work.

"Would you like to make a movie?"

He nearly jumped out of his seat. Once he recomposed himself, he smiled hugely, said of course he wanted to make a movie, and asked about the script.

"I'll take care of that." I replied calmly.

I perused eBay for likely bids for equipment. I spoke to another friend with an artisitic bent about storyboarding and pencilled in a meeting with another who is an amateur composer. When I purchased my copy of TurboTax for my taxes that evening, I picked up a copy of Screenwriter Professional as well.

I loaded the script writing software on my computer, fired it up, and immediately found myself confronted by emptiness - the white page. Here now I sat before the very symbol of how far I needed to go. I needed to fill that page up, it and several dozens of pages after it, with a stream of ideas that other people would find interesting.

The cursor winked at me, silently taunting time to put up or shut up. The page demanded filling, and I felt the first pang of what-the-fuck-are-you-doing fear. A wrote a scene. I rewrote it. I rewrote it again. I went to screenwriting websites. I mumbled to myself, Are you such an idiot?

Hand in hand, the urge to make the leap and the fear of doing it have grown larger and stonger. Intellectually, I know exactly what's going on here. Fear is our most basic survival mechanism. It is fear that saves your life from danger. Fear is the prescience of pain. It tastes like salt and metal. It implodes inside your chest, sucking at your guts.

As I was sitting watching TV last night, even the XTerra commericals were mocking me with their backing music:

Stay as you are and you won’t make a difference
stay as you are and you will never mean a thing
stay as you are and you won't make a difference
I hope your full control in your little hole is worth it

Scary thought.