The Subject of Fear. Is it living with fear, or, living without fear.
I was 49 years of age. It was a moody day on the north shore of Lake Superior but there is no wind nor is it raining.
I was climbing a cliff of a height I had guessed at but it really never mattered how high a cliff was if I decided I wanted to climb it.
I free climb, no ropes and only a welders hammer to cut a chink if need be. I was still very strong then, those nearly 20 years ago.
I was about sixty feet up when, for the first time ever my fingers cramped then lost all their strength my grip was forfeited. Needless to say I fell.
No fear. I simply excepted that I was about to die as I fell, in slow motion in my mind.
Then I hit the ground, in a small patch of sand surrounded by a lay of large and small sharp rocks. I hit flat with my arms and legs spread eagle.
For a moment I experience a sense of nothingness then I became aware that I had not died and slowly climbed to my feet apparently unscathed from my crash landing. Indeed the fall itself did no harm what so ever.
I have never experience any ill effects from the crash landing save a small bruise under my hair in the middle of the back of my scull.
Years later while undergoing a CT for another problem the doctor informed me there was a shadow on my brain exactly where the bruise had been. I said nothing. It did not seem pertinent and still doesn't.
My point: No fear, not for even a nano second. And I have recently realized that I have lived my whole life without fear, probably because I do not fear death and if I am injured I will heal. Pain serves only as reminder that I did not die and I am still stuck in this mortal body for the duration.
Living with fear or without...hmmmmm