Fear of the unknown??

Human nature is to fear the unknown. Few can boldly stride forth into the unknown without feeling some minor anxiety in their hearts that they are treading new ground. Something that is different or new can cause a great deal of anguish for a person. An example, in an abusive relationship, the one being abused fears what the repercussions of being free often sticking with the known evil versus the possible unknown. Being free from an abusive situation poses new struggles. Some of these are learning to provide for oneself, possibly going to school in order to get a better job in the future, finding a place to live, and so forth. In addition a person who comes from an abusive atmosphere is constantly trying to gauge what the people around them are like. Sometimes this results in the person shying away from social interactions or drifting away from people who are harmless, but do not seem harmless in the mind of the person who was abused due to characteristics in similar enough nature to the person (s) that abused them.

From first hand experience, I can say it is hell learning to be apart of society. Making friends is not difficult for me; however, it is a matter of how close I let my friends get before I feel the need to walk away. For the most part, I am doing rather well with this. I have not strayed away from my friends except when I need my space or way too much drama is occurring. It was a hard lesson to learn. It is not easy to learn to trust people when you basic framework of trust has been skewed and twisted. Truth be told, I would trust my friends with my life and about half my heart. The other half of my heart remains locked close to me. It is something I cannot completely give, not possibly will be able to do. I suppose it is a good thing that I was gift with a big heart. (Not physical, but an emotionally caring heart)

So, it is human nature to fear the unknown. In some cases it is really unhealthy. Unhealthy cases would be more on the end of being a recluse and never venturing from home. There are other factors that go into being reclusive, I am just using over generalized examples. Another would be too afraid to seek help because their perception into the unknown is that the answer is going to be a resounding “NO”. Healthy instances are when possibly doing something reckless. What is going to happen if you speed down the highway at 110 miles per hour? That fear of the unknown kicks in to preserve our self and those who might be around us.

Then there are those moments you wish would never end. These are usually comfortable moments where you feel good about where you are or whom you are with or what you are doing. These are also moments where you know whatever is waiting for you on the other side is not good. Is this fear of the unknown? At times yes, at others no; however most of the time it is both. Fear of the unknown comes in the dread. You know something unpleasant is waiting for you, you just don’t know what. You fear getting a concrete answer. On the other hand, a person may simple not want to know. They are content to remain in the moment. They know it is unpleasant, but they don’t want it to affect them until it absolutely has to.

Well, I felt both as Shabbat wound down and out. It wasn’t until after Shabbos that I actually felt the full hit of the emotional upheaval. The last thing I wanted to do was to go home and check my phone. I knew there were going to be messages waiting for me. I didn’t want to know what these messages contained. I worried about the unknown information, but I also just wanted to simply push it off so that it did not spoil and otherwise decent Shabbat. As soon as Shabbat was over, as soon as davening was over, there was no reason to push the unknown off. As much as I did not want to go, I took myself back home and did what I needed to do.

There is a fine balance between pushing something off in for a short time such as the reason to preserve something beautiful like Shabbat and another to just continually push something off. In today’s society more and more of the latter occur. We push things off so much that they are never dealt with, then it comes to ahead and the person explodes emotionally and/or destructively. We have so much we try to balance in so little time that finding the time to deal with the unknown and push ourselves through it to a better place is sometimes impossible. It is healthy to fear the unknown, yet it is not healthy to let it rule over one’s life to the point where a person is crippled by it.

Happy adventuring