Scared to Life

(excerpt from Lenses, a book-length collection of short essays, in search of a publisher)

One night, I saw three hoodlums with machetes walk through the outside wall of my second-floor bedroom. I screamed. I had seen this vision while awake.

It took a while for my breathing and heart rate to slow down. In the process, it occurred to me that I had come close to being scared to death. Then I realized that I had been scared to life.

A dream like that ---- not an ordinary dream composed of images from everyday life, and not a recurring dream heavy with symbolism, but one that comes out of nowhere and that you see while semi-awake − must serve a purpose.

That vision was a wakeup call for me, like a near-death experience. It was a reminder of my mortality, a warning that if there was anything I really wanted to do, I'd better do it. If the obvious physical signs of health issues or aging aren't enough to get me going, then my unconscious will take over and scare me into life.

That's what led me to start this series of essays, trying to make sense of questions I've left unexamined for too long.

The experience of that dream was an affirmation of a basic belief of mine − that as individuals and as a species, self-regulating mechanisms come into play, pushing us toward balance and reason and compassion. And in that context, our worst experiences and our worst fears help nudge us in the right direction, as if some force were trying to navigate a huge ship down a river, with the crudest of controls − a push this way, then a push that way. Toward what goal?