16th August 2010
Catholic Rectory garden, Dean Lane, Bristol, UK.
Type: Mountain Ash
Let’s talk about fear again. What’s it all about? Fight of flight. I was in a tree of the Catholic rectory garden and from here I can see a block of flats where for 8 years a man lived wit a dead body under his sofa. 8 years! He had mental health issues and it seems he didn’t kill him. The dead guy had been subletting off him and popped it in his council flat. The tenant – the live one, was so afraid of being found out for subletting – against the rules that instead of declaring the body he lived with it. Can you imagine. What a bit of fear will drive you to do.
Behind me is part of one crazy institution. The catholic church. Another example of where there’s fear. I’ve never been catholic but I know how it feels to believe there’s no hope your soul and God has really had enough of you, – being terrified that I’d sinned one too may times. I don’t think the catholic’s or whoever else do it to control people – I think they believe in damnation etc – as I did to some extent for a time. It’s an unfortunate belief. It’s a bloody tough one to carry with you. The firey sulphurous abyss where all the bad shit gets chucked at the end of time. I suppose if you want to compare that to an animals instincts it’s a bit O.T.T. (I’m getting ahead of myself – referring to stuff I’ve written later on. The chronology got a bit jumbled …) Did I talk about trees having a sense of fear before? Again – to jump ahead there’s a practice of beating trees into producing more crops … see the 22nd August. Is it a kind of fear that gets them fired up? Fear can be quite handy – in moderation. Can sharpen the mind and focus you, too much and you’re a mess. Not enough and you’re soft. Gets pretty boring though to live with fear all the time. I suspect there will be a shift in my writing when this stuff goes live and people start reading it. It may tighten up – which could/would probably be a good thing – but then – on the other hand – hopefully not too tight – and a) stop being fun to write and b) lose that meandering / wandering flow. The ego is what deals with fear I would have thought. Certainly fear of that nature. Fear of rejection sucks. It’s been nice writing very loosely about whatever pops into my head … automatic writing sometimes. But as with this whole thing I need to up the anti.
Perhaps I need to fear your criticism to improve it(?) Is that how it works? Do we require fear to function, to grow? To produce good fruit? The catholic’s idea is all about rejection … eternal separation from God. And the dude with the dead friend … fear of the authorities rejecting him? (The trees fear the big stick monster that comes to attack …) I wonder if I climb a tree – it provokes growth(?)
So how do we engineer just the right amount of fear? Is all this neurosis about nothing we have in the west a result of needing fear, so we invent stuff to fill the gap(?) Is my concern this writing won’t be good enough as a result of not climbing tall enough trees(?) Not putting myself in danger enough? It’s like who cares what people think of the shapes you make on paper when you nearly died today? Or about your ideas when a branch snapped and that sound of breaking wood could be the last thing you hear. But what if it’s the ideas that matter to me and it’s a question of whether I’ve disguised them well enough, or dressed them up cleverly so you enjoy them and believe them – then maybe you can share a bit of my fear – you can worry whether you can pass it on. If you can tell it as it needs to be told so as the be understood and believed. If people believe you – you have a responsibility. More fear?
