My greatest fear!

As a child my greatest fear included having to sleep in a room without light with my hyperactive imagination conjuring up ghostly figures emerging from our wardrobe with its doors partially open and releasing dinosaurs and more mythical figures bent on swallowing me!

Only God knows how many nights I lay in bed tossing and turning, covering my head under the sheets failing to fall asleep with my bizarre thoughts caused by spending time with older cousins who had a propensity to spin tall tales of ghosts and witches and wizards! I would fall asleep only to wake up the next morning to see that the huge monster of the previous night was my school uniform hung up or some other clothes in their rightful place.

My fears as I grew up were fueled by the ideas of the unseen world, I still blame the cousins who would spin such terrible tales that were innocent at midday but with the setting of the sun the characters they created became more menacing. So I was scared of going anywhere on my own in the dark. Thanks to NEPA's(Electric Company) epileptic or non-existent supply of light, it was something I had to face on a regular basis. I hated being sent on errands around the house and if I happened to be sent downstairs when NEPA had struck, I would race through the house as if the hounds of hell were after me, panting and almost breathless. I was scared of my shadow, of the dark corners where something not belonging to this world was waiting to leap out and frighten me, I was scared of dying and also scared of being buried alive!

I can laugh now at such fears but I probably can say that I have only exchanged one set of fears for another. A woman's action in this article prompted this post! Her fear of giving birth to 'another beast' was enough to make her undergo sterilization at the age of 30!  Her drastic action reminded me of how powerful the tentacles of fear are and how much joy you can be robbed of when you allow fear rule you. I had allowed the fear of darkness to rule most of my childhood and what times I should have spent pleasantly daydreaming before I dropped off to sleep were spent worrying about the monsters in the wardrobe!

 Reading through this article, I was faced with two of my 'adult' fears. The fear of being a victim of another holocaust and the fear of standing by and allowing 'others' to be victims. My first fear is an unreasonable one! The second has been reinforced by reading through stories of the holocaust and watching films like 'The boy in the Pyjamas' or Schindler's List. I then wonder what I would have done if I was in the shoes of Nazi! Would I have watched complacently while innocent souls were shipped off to the gas chambers and concentration camps or would I have been shipped alongside them for daring to dare speak up against such terrible crimes? Would I have helped hide the Jews or would I have believed saving my hide was a better alternative?

Since the holocaust is long gone, I tend to wonder whether there are issues I should be shouting out from rooftops about and which I am conveniently ignoring. I wonder if there are people I should be speaking for and I am keeping silent because I do not want to be excluded from the 'in'crowd (whatever that is). I wonder if there are causes I should be giving a lot more of my time, resources and aid to and instead I am content spending the money on pampering myself. I wonder if in a few years from now another generation will rise up and condemn my actions as 'selfish, wicked, crazy, unbelievable' the same way we rise up and condemn the perpetrators of the holocaust! I am afraid my fear will not be a ghostly apparition but a dream come true!

What do you think?