When fear strikes back in your life, how do you combat it? How do you fight it back? What do you do?
Can you leave a message, let me know…?
How do you fight back fear?
Fear is a liar
My week wasn’t bad. I fought back the darkness in my head, I worked some good hours, did the dishes, cooked but still cannot sleep 8 full hours. No, my mind becomes light, like hot air, at night. I see monsters in the darkness, I feel them crawling these walls, my bed, the desk… I can reasonably fight my fears back for some daily hours but at night they are strong. Fear tricks my mind into realities that don’t exist and my heart pounds inside my chest, I breath shortly and anxiety claims back its grounds.
Fear is my enemy. I can understand it from a rational poit of view, I read Jung and all the others and yes, they make sense, but at night not much sense is left. Fear is a heavy load to carry along the way, it makes you feel heavy and very slow. Your mind claims a pathway and actions but you are slow or even paralyzed. During the weekends is not that bad but then Sunday late in the evening I am weaker and weaker. Fear feasts on my heart becoming stronger as I go down.
Fear creates monsters and lies in my head and I am confused by them. Confusion I don’t need. Fear is the enemy. Why? Where does it come from? Myself?
To those green eyes…
It was a good day for me, today, my love. You will come home later and I will look into your green eyes, like I have done every day for the last 21 years. Your eyes will remind me of soft meadows, of warm jungles, of stones buried in the heart of mountains.
I met you 21 years ago in Manhattan, under a cold rain. It has been a long journey all this time with you, yes. You gave me the strongest beacon in my life: our daughter. So I still wonder every day when I hear your steps reaching the door (yes, try me: I could identify them among a million others) how is it that you are still by my side, smiling, enduring my dark days…
I have learnt to love you through your body first, as a companion then, later on as a mother and now as a complete and complex human being. So if I fall, your green eyes tenderly show me the way back. Two green candles by the window so I can find back home every dark night of my life. And I have memorized all the stars on your skin, the cascading sounds of your lungs and heart, yes, but also the rythmic tides of your smile always coming back to our daughter when she is worried about life.; yes I have, but your eyes still mesmerize me.
Even if my body falls tomorrow, in the battle against darkness, my heart will grab to the scorched dust and come back to you, my love, from the other side of the ocean, from the terrifying demons of my mind, from the devastating sadness of my depression, I will always find the way back to your green eyes, my love, my little love, my companion…
Two green candles by the window. pushing darkness back…
I am Superman
I am Superman (and you too). Nobody knows (and I don’t care) because I only wear shirt and pants (and a cardigan sometimes, and a hat sometimes too). I am Superman because I endured millions of bullets, falls, nights when darkness engulfed me like a black hole. I am Superman because I am still alive and I still love my wife with all my ragged heart. I am Superman because I refuse to surrender to sadness and I silently wash the dishes every day so when she arrives the sink is empty and clean. Only Superman can wash the dishes under the terrible cloud of depression, every day, always trying to do a good job.
Yes, I am Superman (and you too) because we can look darkness in the eye. Perhaps sometimes we need to escape to the North Pole to put our soul together, our battered body back on track, yes, but we always make it back.
Nobody knows but we save the world everyday by saving our own lives and by worrying about the 2-3 lives that directly hang from ours. We are Superman and sometimes we forget, yes, so all crumbles around and we cannot breath, yes. But we always open our eyes in the morning and get out of the bed and open the fucking window; yes, sometimes we even shave and sometimes we even manage to work. We live in a constant war, 24/7, a war taking no prisoners, a war in our heads and hearts, a war where we are our worst enemies and our hearts freeze and partially die and then we must run for shelter and lick our wounds and make it back to the arena the best we can.
We are Superman because we care and because we still dare to dream of a better tomorrow. We are Superman because we put a smile for our son/daughter so our pain stays with us and does not damage them and then we go to the bathroom and cry or brake a glass or just stare at the tiles silently. And yes, we put our best smile and get the fuck out and go back to our wife/husband and son/daughter and acknowledge we are just ashes inside but still warm ashes, warm for those two people. Then we can even dream about tomorrow being another day, perhaps a bit better.
I am Superman (and you too)…
Go all the way…
To the dark demons living in my head, please be welcomed, make yourself comfortable on the couch, let’s have a friendly drink because I plan to look into your eyes, turn the light on your face and never stop. If you persist in my head, be prepared for a long trip because I will not stop, I will go ahead, live and fight. I was somebody, then I was nothing, I lost all I had and all I was. Or almost, because somewhere under my shirt there is something remaining after the storm. That little thing is me, the basic ME, the me that breaths and dreams.
My dearest fears and demons, please prepare your backpacks and suitcases because I am not stoping, I am fighting back and I intend to push ahead this journey that is my existence. I will find the sound of my steps somewhere, I will wear my hat, some cigars, some books, a good bottle of Scotch (single malt), some Vermeers in my memory, some Bukowski, some paella, some memories of a Mediterranean beach, a sunset in Paris and an old friend in NYC. I will go far away, I refuse to surrender.
Follow me if you want, if you dare, I won’t stop for you…
Four hours
So far I could manage to put 4 good hours of work today, stopping for a coffee. I am not back at all, to my old self but today I feel quite well. I fought all my demons back, fencing them into their shadows and corners so the laptop was again my friend and not a wasteland of empty minutes. I increased my TO-DO list in a 25% and overall I did all I planned to do. Now I am feeling the tingling ambition of asking for more, asking myself for more work, asking life for more light and another good chance.
When you are down for a long time and then you experience some modest peaks up, you as for more, I assume it is a natural thing, yes. Perhaps the problem is that a sort of overconfidence propels you to go too fast now (or try to). No, I will enjoy this moment, this feeling of 4 very good and productive hours of work, a time when I could control my mind and crank it back to action, to production.
Yes, I could enjoy my imagination, my capacity for calculus, for financial scenarios, for marketing… Also, I am experiencing less and less patience every day for crap or stupid people. A sort of abrupt and almost violent word bursts from my mouth, sending to hell those morons around me. I did it this morning with a young and spoiled brat, a person who is very young, coming from an extremely wealthy family, living in Boston and with ONLY one subject left to finish her degree. Really??? Could you, stupid idiot complain that your life is hard? No, I really don’t think so. Fuck you, idiot, so I sent her to hell. Paradoxically, she came back to the conversation admitting she was wrong. What is this? If I keep silent you brag around and if I kick your ass you come back to your senses?
Perhaps we need our ass to be kicked so we can come back to our senses, yes… I wonder if depression will have that effect on me one day, when it is completely under control…
Don’t take crap. Send people to hell every once in a while. It might be fun…
My heart is not old, just tired
No, my heart is not old, just a bit tired, bleeding from so many punches but still intact at its core. I still have 3-4 good fights inside and I will honor them in due time. No, my heart is not old, it is just catching up with all this shit and mendacity and pain around. I will be back, I will claim what is mine, what I lost but I can foresee just few hills away, in the horizon.
Yes, I will push and push and push until nothing is left inside my soul, so my heart goes back to the ring, to its corner, to punch back all the crap and all the shadows life can throw at me. Yes, one way or the other I will make it, I will see life back to my dried veins and light to these dusty eyes. Yes, I will be back in the arena and I will then give the best of myself because I already saw the worst.
No, no more sadness or dark suitcases in my house. No more locked doors, no more… I will be back becaused my heart is not old, just tired…
Not all those who wander are lost
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes, a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be the blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
This is a JRR Tolkien poem and I always found it very descriptive about hope and also entrepreneurship and creativity. I think part of depression hides in longing for something that we already know, that we have identified but cannot yet put in words or in rational thinking. Sometimes something hurts terribly but we have no means to name it, so it becomes a shadow, a hidden demon. That doesn’t mean it is unknown to us, only that we didn’t name it yet. Part of fighting against depression is gathering knowledge on those shadows and naming them. Sometimes we cannot clean them away but we could still invite them for a cup of coffee and a nice chat. I mean we can learn to live with those demons of our mind and imagination.
I had my dose of shadows today, I managed to work anoter 2 good hours so far and wasted anoter 6 so far too. I wonder why the hell is it that I cannot fully control my mind but after an outburst of impatience, I go back to my project, to writing, to the step by step technique/strategy/modus vivendi. I unleash JS Bach in all his glory and then I resume my quest for meaning.
Bilbo Baggins, you are the best…
Fear of failure versus success
Many people suffer a strong fear of failure rooted in a complicated childhood or adolescence. This fear of failure can freeze us from developing our lives and careers.
As an entrepreneur, I had to face this many years ago because it literally scared me dead. I overanalyzed, I was overcautious… At one moment in my life I needed to face it and the only way was to force myself into scary situations over and over. I could finally manage it though I doubt anybody can be completely ‘cured’ of it since it is more of an emotional scar, a dead tissue you carry on forever…
I found this simple graph. Where are you?
Quite an experience to live in fear…
No, we cannot live in fear all the time, we are made of light, stardust, dreams accumulated during the last 100,000 years… He dream of hunting, traveling, navigating immense oceans, we dream of flying, of touching the bottom of the sea, of leaving a footprint on another planet’s surface…
No, life and fear are not compatible, neither are depression and life…
An Entrepreneur's Life 