Fear of Looking Stupid
(hey, I think a stupid title is appropriate for the subject.)

  Different levels of youth. There are those whose world revolves around the newest fashions, getting invited to the coolest parties, and being with the popular crowd. Then there are those who wish they could be those in the popular crowd. And then there are the rest of us. Those of us who do not envy or hate, nor admire or copy those people.Those of us who are indifferent not only to them but to everyone. I am one of these. I feel the compulsion only to impress and be liked by those who I respect and regard highly, an elect few. I chose my cloths not to the passing fashions and seasons, but to my own taste. I listen to the music that has a point, a message, a depth at least in its harmonies whatever they may be and not to the number one selling one-hit-wonder that sings of superficial love and sex. I spend my time doing those things that make me feel whole and myself whether it be contemplating, writing, making webpages, walking, or watching movies and not on attempting to look better than before, meet the right person, be seen in the right places, and gossiping about who looked how where with who. But in one respect we are all the same.
     We all fear the same thing. Fear. Fear of looking stupid grips us all. Those people in their superficial world fear looking stupid in front of the masses, of wearing the wrong clothes or saying the wrong thing. We fear looking stupid in the eyes of one person. I admire and respect someone to a point that the only thing that would be able to break through the indifference is having that one person look at me a little strangely, think of me badly, like me a little less for something I said or did. I walk through life in confidence, smiling and having a good time until a situation arises and I have time to think. It is when I consider the many different ways a person I care for can perceive me that the paranoid fear of looking stupid steps in. Then I smile a little less, and enjoy myrself a little less because in the back of my mind is that fear that causes me to check every action and every statement, like a splinter in my foot reminding me with every step to step carefully. I know that this fear alone makes me a little less attractive, that it takes away from the confidence and leadership and forwardness that makes me me, that others define as those characterisics that are me. I know this and yet it takes meditation to prepare myself for when I am in the presence of those whose rejection I fear to know that no defines me but me. If I could but always know this, and exist in the peace that it brings that I would be a bit more like the person I want to be, the version of me I can respect.

Blood on the Petrified Wood:
don't you wish you knew what that was supposed to mean?

    Blood on the petrified wood. What kind of name is petrified wood? Petrified. That is just the wrod now isn't it? Petrified. Not just afraid. Nor frightened. But petrified. Immobolized by fear. It is never the phobias of life that strike terror to that extreme in my heart. Not my arachnaphobia, no movie, no Stephen King novel. Nothing so tangible causes that panicked petrification I feel. Tangible fears can be destroyed, but no, it is a fear that cannot be destroyed so easily that petrifies me. Fear of my own inadequacy. Such a stupid and pointless fear. I disgust myself in this fear and yet cannot help feeling it. Fear of my vulnerability. Fear that there is indeed something in my world which is not under my control. Fear that my feelings for someone can  subject me to thier control, not control inflicted upon me by that person, but merely control they hold because their feelings toward me cannot be controlled by me. Fear of the unknown. Knowing that I can do anything, go anywhere and fearing that I can't. Fear that the doubts of others could be true.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION