Bring It!

"Danger? Hah! I walk on the wild side. I laugh in the face of danger. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

--Simba, The Lion King

I have been having a hard time lately. It just seems as if life is dealing out blows at a feverish pace; I'm not even recovered from one impact before another blow rocks my world. But something strange is happening to me in the midst of all this trouble. I think I'm either getting stronger or my brains have gone addled like Rocky Balboa, because the blows are starting to take on a decidedly comical air. Does this ever happen to you? It's like all I can do is laugh. There's a smidge of surrender in it and yet...a big dollop of defiance is waiting in the wings. It's an odd sensation; this feeling. It reminds me of a scene in one of my favorite movies of all time: The Count of Monte Cristo. At his birthday party, the Count gives young Albert Mondego a birthday toast that resonates with me because of it's likeness to my current feelings. The toast starts at precisely 1 minute in the following clip (or the text is below, if you don't feel like watching):

"Young Albert has made far too much of the assistance I gave him in Rome. When I arrived in the catacombs, I watched as the criminals - who tied Albert to a wall - threatened to cut off his finger and send it to his father as evidence of his abduction. The boy's reply to all this was, 'Do your worst!'

"Life is a storm my young friend, you will bask in the sunlight one moment; be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome, 'Do your worst for I will do mine!' Then the Fates will know you as we know you...as Albert Mondego, the man." 

--Edmond Dantes, as the Count of Monte Cristo

Now, I'm not trying to "man up" or anything. Heaven knows I'm as surprised by my reaction as much as anyone. But I do feel like this shattered-on-the-rocks stage I'm in right now has pushed me around as long as I'm going to let it! These continuous blows have awoken the sleeping giant inside of me and I find myself shouting, 'Bring it, storm!' Or like Albert in Rome, "Do your worst for I will do mine!" I may continue to get knocked around, but I'm gonna give this storm a run for it's money, dangit!

Is that weird, or what?

Irrational Fish Fear

"I discovered I scream the same way whether I'm about to be devoured by a great white shark or if a piece of seaweed touches my foot." 

–Kevin James, Sweat the Small Stuff

This quote reminded me of an amusing BFF experience, so I thought I'd share. {L} and I have been best friends since we were both part of a marching cymbal line in Marching Band at 14 years of age. Yes, I said the cymbals. No, neither of us made a career out of playing them. We just had too many flutes in our band, so we both converted to drum line for marching season. We had WAY more fun making super awesome high-fives than we ever would have hanging out with the flute section. But I digress... 

I have always had an irrational fear of fish. In my *mind* they are harmless, but if one touches me, my body goes absolutely berserk, thus polluting my mind into an uncontrollable panic - kind of like the quote suggests. I have no idea why this happens, but it is unpleasant and humiliating to turn into a screaming, flailing, banshee-woman in front of strangers. So generally I try to avoid swimming in bodies of water that contain fish.   

Don't ask me why my husband and I ever bought a jet ski, but we did. We were young newlyweds - about 20 years old - with no children to spend our dual income on and we thought it would be fun to go to the lake on the weekends. I was fully aware that my fish-fear may cause a problem, but I thought the jet ski would be fun enough to overcome it. Besides, I wasn't planning on falling off the thing.  

Well, one day I had a day off in common with my brother and {L} (hubs had to work), so we planned a day out at the lake together. My brother backed the jet ski into the water at the dock and waded waist-deep into the carp-infested water to disconnect the jet ski from the trailer. Without touching the water, {L} and I hopped on and drove the jet ski over to the dock and waited while my brother parked the truck. By the time he came back, {L} was standing on the dock and I had removed the seat on the jet ski so that I could store the car keys underneath. 

But when my brother went to hand me the keys, he let go of them before I was ready and...plop! They dropped down into the disgusting water. We blamed each other for a minute (as siblings usually do) before the horrifying realization hit me that if we ever wanted to leave the lake, someone had to dive about 10 feet down in that cesspool to get the keys…and my brother was wearing contacts.

I refused to do it and so did {L}, who apparently had equal fish fears.  My brother tried to do it anyway, but after several dives, found the task impossible without being able to open his eyes under water.

So, between my irrational fear and my brother’s contacts, we were at an impasse. And by this time, we had attracted a LOT of attention from other boaters at the dock. I was absolutely refusing to dive down there, and my brother was starting to get extremely irritated at me. Other boaters tried to offer me incentives, “Lady, I’ll give you $20 if you’ll dive down there!” Yeah…I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone whose irrational fears can be overcome by a measly $20! I wondered if they were willing to pay me $20, why weren’t they willing to help me out and dive down there themselves? Oh yeah. Because they wanted to WATCH me freak out! I was entertainment! At that realization, I dug in my heals. I WILL NOT DIVE IN THAT WATER! I would rather LIVE at the lake forever than sell myself for the entertainment of half drunk fools!

So, after about 10 minutes of this, {L} shouts out, “Oh, everyone just SHUT UP! I’ll do it! I don’t see why I should have to,” she glares at me, “but someone has to do it! I’m not getting stranded over some DISGUSTING fish!”

It took her about 5 minutes to mentally prepare herself with a series of squeals and shudders, but jump in she did, while the gawkers looked on. 

About 10 seconds later, my hero launched herself out of the water like a dolphin. She plopped herself belly first on the dock, chucked the keys down in my direction and screamed at the top of her voice, “FRIENDSHIP ISN’T WORTH THIS MUCH!” Then to the great amusement of the gathered crowd, she started jumping around making all the sounds and gestures you would imagine a completely disgusted person making.

I was entirely cowed and utterly ashamed of myself, but we ended up having a fabulous time that day.  I did get my comeuppance, however. That was also the day that I was thrown from the jet ski in the middle of the lake. A stupid underwater weed scraped my leg and I had a panic attack that manifested as a vision of a giant carp, mouth agape, chasing me back to the jet ski. I don’t think I ever swam like that before or since.   

But the experience wasn't entirely without merit. I now know I would be utterly useless in an emergency…but fabulous comic relief. Yay. And I learned that I have the most breathtakingly phenomenal best friend on the planet! Love ya, {L}! Maybe someday I’ll be brave enough stand between you and one of your monsters shouting, "FRIENDSHIP ISN'T WORTH THIS MUCH" like a contradictory battle cry.

C.S. Lewis Sunday - Morality and Peace

"The price of peace is righteousness. Peace cannot be imposed. It must come from the lives and hearts of men. There is no other way."

--Ezra Taft Benson

"There are two ways in which the human machine goes wrong. One is when human individuals drift apart from one another, or else collide with one another and do one another damage, by cheating or bullying. The other is when things go wrong inside the individual--when the different parts of him (his different faculties and desires and so on) either drift apart or interfere with one another. You can get the idea plain if you think of us as a fleet of ships sailing in formation. The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if the ships do not collide and get in one another's way; and, secondly, if each ship is seaworthy and has her engines in good order. As a matter of fact, you cannot have either of these two things without the other. If the ships keep on having collisions they will not remain seaworthy. Or, if you like, think of humanity as a band playing a tune. To get a good result, you need two things. Each player's individual instrument must be in tune and also each must come in at the right moment so as to combine with all the others. ...

"Morality, then, seems to be concerned with three things. Firstly, with fair play and harmony between individuals. Secondly, with what might be called tidying up or harmonizing the things inside each individual. Thirdly, with the general purpose of human life as a whole: what man was made for: what course the whole fleet ought to be on: what tune the conductor of the band wants it to play. ...

"Almost all people at all times have agreed (in theory) that human beings ought to be honest and kind and helpful to one another. But though it is natural to begin with all that, if our thinking about morality stops there, we might just as well not have thought at all. Unless we go on  to the second thing--the tidying up inside each human being --we are only deceiving ourselves.

"What is the good of telling the ships how to steer so as to avoid collisions if, in fact, they are such crazy old tubs that they cannot be steered at all? What is the good of drawing up, on paper, rules for social behaviour, if we know that, in fact, our greed, cowardice, ill temper, and self-conceit are going to prevent us from keeping them? I do not mean for a moment that we ought not to think, and think hard, about improvements in our social and economic system. What I do mean is that all that thinking will be mere moonshine unless we realize that nothing but the courage and unselfishness of individuals is ever going to make any system work properly. It is easy enough to remove the particular kinds of graft or bullying that go on under the present system: but as long as men are twisters or bullies they will find some new way of carrying on the old game under the new system. You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society."

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

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