Fear and Loafing in New Jersey

A previous post (The Resurrection) prompted a conversation with my friend Chris about past poetry (you can see one of his in the comments section). I begged him to send me some more of his adolescent poetry and he was happy to oblige me. One of them, entitled "Climbing Trees", reminded me that fear should never stop you from living your life. The first stanza prompted me to write this post:

Scratch your hands and graze your knees,
It won't kill you, climb the trees,
Nose bleeds and sprained wrists,
Bruised arms and split lips,
Everyone gets stung by bees,
Don't let it stop you climbing trees.

Besides the fact that the above was written by a British boy when he was 15, it still holds true for almost all aspects of day to day living. I have always thought of myself in the individual sense: the suffering that I endure could never be understood by anyone else! I've blown the best bubble around myself and no one can pop it.

There was a point where I felt so isolated in my desperation at not finding a job, of being single, of still living with my parents, that I went on a search for a person holding a pointy needle to help save me from my circular hell. What I found was PostSecret and their chatroom community. For those of you unfamiliar with Post Secret, the website is an ongoing art project where people send in homemade postcards with a personal secret written on the front or back. Since I lack any artistic talent, I thought I would give posting a secret in a forum a try. When I realized that I was not alone in my plight, that hundreds, if not thousands (millions? A girl can dream...) of recent grads were sucking down the haterade and subscribing to their own personal woe, I quickly grabbed a sharp fork and popped my own bubble.

When you live in fear of falling your whole life, how will you be able to climb to the top limbs? Just a thought.