Fear

I want to go home!

One of FDR’s priceless aphorisms went like this: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He issued this solemn nugget during his first of many inaugural addresses, in an effort to Heimlich the nation out of its collective eco-funk during the Great Depression. His somber delivery was a distinct about-face from the buoyant tone he employed during the campaign to get the job in the first place. Well that only makes sense, doesn’t it? Item 1: Put on a good game face, and Item 2: Secure the high ground.

I believe that immediately after issuing the aforementioned quote, the newly elected Prez suffered a brain aneurysm and could no longer walk or have sex again. But don’t quote me on that. I consulted Conservapedia, just for kicks.

Years later (so many, in fact, that laws were enacted to put a curfew on Whitehouse visits) Roosevelt went on to stir the nation into a whole other frame of mind, by declaring December 7th a forever infamous day. It stands to reason that if one lives long enough, sooner or later every day becomes infamous, which is fine by me as long as we get to take it off.

I’m wondering, if the fear quote had been used on the foot soldiers heading off to the Ardennes Mountains with eighty pounds of Spam and M-1 rounds on their backs, how they might have responded. Maybe something like, “Uh, whaaa?!” Context is everything.

I’m sure Frank’s heart was in the right place, as are the tickers of all gung-ho heads of state. But it always sounds a little fishy, doesn’t it, when the guys in the big house tell us we just need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and suffer nobly for the sake of the carpetbaggers who sold us a bill of goods in the first place? But that is sometimes the job of the commander-in-chief. Sit on the sidelines, shaking the pompons, and cheering us on to all manner of foolish behavior.

Where the heck am I going with this? I’m definitely not trying to say boating is foolish behavior, although boating definitely encourages foolish behavior. I was just thinking about fear, and that quote popped into my head. Then I went off on what I like to call a Limbauputian tear, having completely ignored the quote’s original context. (PS: You really ought to read the whole of FDR’s inaugural speech. If nothing else, it proves that we’re doomed to repeat history, whether we’ve paid attention to it or not.)

Like I said, context is everything. Which is why I’m all over the place right now trying to salvage a crippled analogy. Fear certainly can muddle the mind, can’t it? Somebody launch the life raft, puh-leeze!

What I’m trying to say is, fear is sometimes a bit more complex than a simple, self-immobilizing funk. There certainly does exist that counterproductive, debilitating form of fear, that of the unknown. And there is the occasional bout of frozen catatonia, suffered by certain genetically programmed goats (which you can view, and torment if you’re so inclined, on Block Island), and also by humans (with no excuse whatsoever), whose' behavior is often portrayed by inert (but for their heaving cleavage) female movie characters, loaded weapon in hand, watching their boyfriends getting the crap kicked out of them by the bad guy.

But there is also the very righteous fear of the statistically possible, potentially horrible outcome. Starving and drowning come to mind.

You never know what tomorrow might bring, but if you’re going to spend it on a boat, you may be in for some fear-generating trouble. And if you get into it, don’t count on the Coast Guard to bail you out. They might just sit and watch you make an abject lesson out of yourself, which in some cases could be construed as a character-building exercise.

To say there is no point in worrying about whether or not something bad will happen to you today, because either it will or it won’t, simply deserves a good beating. That would be a lesson to the advisor. I’ll bet you didn’t see that coming, did you Socrates? If you had, you might have avoided having a boat hook jammed up your ass.

That’s one thing I fear, and you should too: having something jammed up your ass, while sailing. I’ve actually come close a few times.

And there it is! A lesson for all of us. Watch your backside. Whew! I pulled it off in the end. That was a squeaker, wasn’t it?

I’ve been scared a few times on a boat. Coming soon will be a story about one of those times.

PS: Call me psychic. Having finished this piece, I see that Beth Leonard has actually published a useful article on fear in the latest Cruising World. You would actually learn something from her.