10 Day YOU Challenge/Quest: 8 Fears

I’m really late to draft and publish my third installment to the “10 Day YOU Challenge”. Maybe it’s because I didn’t want to face my fears :P
And just this past weekend I was watching “Zindagi Na Milegi Dubara”, which was all about conquering fears and following you dreams! How apt :-)

So here goes the list of 8 Fears:

- Losing loved ones: Surely this comes way on top of everyone’s minds, and their lists. So I won’t elaborate, for even thinking about it would be painful.

- Stage-Fright: It is very difficult to get me to face a crowd and start speaking/performing. But once I start, I’m damn good! I’ve accepted that it’s just going to be like it, and work with it. Consolation is, so do the greatest in their fields: Mohanlal, Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar!

- Free-fall: ..although I’m in a constant struggle to overcome it, for it’s not really vertigo. And doesn’t everyone go through this? Or is it just that some people naturally act brave and enjoy the Level-5 rides? But given a choice, I just woudn’t go for them. Never done bungee-jumping; and no skydiving: I could completely empathise with Farhan Akhtar in ZNMD.

- Insects and Bugs: Although anywhere you go, bugs are the most resilient, tenacious and ubiquitous creatures around, I can’t stand any of them. I think it started with a childhood “traumatic” experience that I haven’t been able to shake off till date: I woke up one morning and found a dead cockroach in the drool near my lips! Now don’t ask me if it came from inside my mouth, or how it got killed, for I don’t know and have imagined a 100 different things (Yuck! Yes, exactly how I feel too). Since then, if I see an insect scurrying around, I resemble the Gorgs chasing the Fraggles in “Fraggle Rock”. Well, this habit in general keeps my home bug-free ;-)

- Horror movies/stories: I don’t believe in ghosts. I can stay alone. But I sometimes wonder if what The Joker said was true: “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stranger”. Watching a good horror movie makes me highly sensitive and suspicious of everything around. Not the zombie flicks, but the ones like Bhoot and Raat that show horror in everyday life, or after hearing an "incident" that happened in someone's village. I really begin feeling a “Paranormal Activity” within and around for days together. But I agree with what scientists say: Horror is born in our minds, and it’s a reflection of the mind’s fear of the unknown.

- Terminal Illness: It’s a salute to the human spirit to live in the face of death. As do so many people in this world. I keep hoping and praying that I or people I care for, don’t have to go through this. If it’s time, let it be peaceful and quick.

- Financial Dependance: I guess every man has this feeling, ever since he’s a college guy I guess. Or perhaps society keeps harping this into him. That someday he has to stand up on his own two feet, be self-sufficient financially, have a family and be able to provide for it. This feeling really drives the world. Indeed, if every person were willing to throw it all away to live his dreams, the world would have been chaotic :-); nobody wanting to follow anyone, everyone his own master, and doing what he pleases. Pretty scary although it’s supposed to sound nice! But men are willing to compromise, because the filial responsibility overbears all. And he is willing to gulp a bit of his pride, and bite the dust, and at times even do wrong, to keep his family well-provided for. I wouldn’t want to depend on anyone financially, and hopefully it’ll never be so.

- Radical views: I generally keep away from people who have extreme views. For I don’t understand how people can be “just so sure”, or stubborn to put it bluntly. And we all are adults, so I can air my opinion, but not really change anyone’s hardline view unless he himself is willing to. I have an opinion, but am willing to build up / compromise on it. It is better to bend than to break. Go to any martial arts master, and they’ll advise, where you find yourself overpowered, just start running! If you live today, you live to fight another day. So I shun radical or extreme views at either end. The pendulum has to swing around the center, and not from one extreme to the other. If everyone were so sure and hell-bent on things being their way, there really is no way we can achieve peace. And there truly seems to be where the world has always been. We never really have got along. We keep fighting, killing, and stealing in want. This endless cycle, driven by the extreme nature of human greed, and unwilling to compromise on anything in its wake, makes me fear for the planet the generation after will inherit.