Fear.

Fear is an interesting things to ponder. I have fear about many things. It comes in shifts and waves depending on where I am in my life. When I was young, my greatest fears came from wanting to make sure I caught my favorite cartoons. I would also get the occasional worry about, when my parents went out to dinner and I was left with the babysitter, whether they would ever come home again. After all, where should they have the right to go that I can not go with them? Well, this was the five-year-old me.

As I grew a little older, my fears began to morph to how I would be perceived in school. This did not come arise as much in high as it did in middle school, as I went to high school in a very liberal environment. I was in my awkward stage, and I slaved over keeping up with whatever was cool. The only thing I never surrendered was my music taste. I always listened to whatever I wanted to listen to. However, I could still not let any of my classmates new that I liked to listen to The Clash instead of Chris Brown. Funny how the guy who beats his spouses makes music more suitable for the younger than the Grateful Dead do.

Anyways, in high school, the biggest fears were keeping my social life stable, maintaining a stable relationship if I was in one at the moment, and, finally, getting in to college. Those seem like pretty reasonable things to worry about to me. After all, those are what's most important right?

When I think about it, it seems pretty awful. Faderman's interview told of a group of people on the run from soldiers who wanted nothing more than kill them and to do every possible awful thing that they could think of before that. There are people in third-world countrties whio fight every day for survival, and there main worries usually center around just getting the adequate amount of food for that day. Why do I have the right be afraid of my parents not coming home, how my "friends" at school feel about me, or, god forbid, getting a low grade?

I don't think it's a good excuse for it, but the reason I'm afraid of these things is because I'm selfish. I want to do well. I want to get good grades in college, and end up having a good set-up for after I graduate. I want things. I want a nice house and a nice girlfriend (well, maybe...), and the people from Faderman's interview wanted just to live. So where the hell do I get off? But that's the truth. It's because of the way I was raised; I was raised with opportunities. If I don't make something of myself, what point will there be to any of the things I was provided with when I was younger? I'm afraid more than anything of wasting what has been given to me since I was little. It's selfish, but it's right.