No, I am not paralyzed by fear. But it is 4:30am in the morning, when I should be asleep.
Instead, here I am, writing a blog article. Simply laying there in bed staring at the ceiling does no good. Maybe writing down my thoughts will let me get a bit more sleep!
Brain Games
What woke me up this morning was a headache. For most of you, headaches are no big deal. You take something, Excedrin in my case, and you are done with it. For me, especially now, headaches are a BIG deal. It was a headache that signaled a minor stroke a couple of months ago, and messed up the vision in my remaining eye.
So, my brain started playing games.
"Let's have another stroke!"
"No let's not!" (And I get up to attack it with my trusty Excedrin.)
Note to self: Do not take Excedrin with orange juice. The two create a mess in my throat while trying to swallow the pills. So, in addition to the headache, I get to deal with a coughing spell! Sheesh!
Well, now that I am awake, what else might be causing the headache.
I know, another cancer attack!
Not likely, but in examining my feelings at the moment, I notice my face aches. Not surprising, considering how much "work" has been done there.
But, no! The brain says otherwise!
So, any minor pressure I feel in my face must be another caner tumor growing. Why, oh why, does the brain play these angry mind games?
Fear!
Controlling Fear
Most of the time, fear is imaginary. You are in a situation you have never experienced before, and you do not know what to do. That situation is surely going to kill you, so your adrenalin gland pumps into action zinging your senses into full alert. Suddenly, you are operating in a new way entirely. For some, that new way freezes them into an immobile mess. They become paralyzed, unable to function. The situation is in control of their lives from that point on.
Not good!
For others, the heightened state helps them do things they might not have been able to do otherwise. The fear becomes a good thing, and they get through the incident with no harm!
Those who succumb to the fear are condemned to repeat that same behavior in the future. Those who do not, learn that the fear is not necessarily a bad thing, but something they can live through and perhaps get a bit used to. I am betting soldiers in battle, facing enemy fire on a daily (minute-by-minute) basis, get to this point, or they cease to exist!
In my now almost nine year battle with cancer, I have faced fear on an almost daily basis with this second approach in mind. What I am fearing at the moment is not going to get the best of me!
That does not stop the brain games. But I have lived through a lot of fear in my days, and gained from those experiences.
First Horse Ride
The first time I was sure I was going to die, that I can remember at least, was the first time I got up on a horse. I was in the first grade, living in Dunn Loring, VA, in a tiny house near my school. In the back of the homes on my street, there was a hill, and the side of the hill was covered with piles of dead trees, bulldozed by the builders who made the lots clear for the homes they built. Great place for kids to play! Many places for forts, and hiding spots, and caves full of prehistoric beasts to conquer!
A bunch of us kids were gathered in the woods on top of this hill. One of the kids had a pony, not all that much bigger then we were, and he was leading him through the woods when he came upon my group.
Hey, let's ride the "horse"!
"Not on your life" muttered the pony!
A few got up there and managed to ride along for a short while as we walked along the top of the hill. The pony's owner kept him on the lead rope while this was going on.
Then came my turn.
I got on top of the pony. Grabbed onto the lead rope attached to his halter, and did what I saw cowboys do on TV. I kicked him with my heals.
"Ok, wise guy! Kick me and see what you get!" says the pony.
And he is off like a shot! The kids were left in his dust!
I vaguely remember hanging on for dear life, as my short life flew past my eyes along with the trees. We were galloping along, me sliding from side to side (no saddle) me just hanging on, when the edge of a giant cliff came into view. Well, it looked like a cliff.
The pony slid to a stop, I flew over his head, and hit the ground in front of him, sliding to a stop mere inches from certain death if I went over the cliff. (Actually, it was just a steep hill, made all the more dangerous by my fear laced brain!)
I survived that event! And learned that riding an out of control horse can be something of an adventure. I repeated that adventure many years later while riding a horse at Rush Creek Land and Cattle Company in Lisco, Nebraska.
Rush Creek
Rush Creek is a small, 160,000 acre, cattle ranch in the middle of Nebraska. It is divided up into several smaller operations, managed by cowboys who ride Arabian horses to manage their individual herds. Those horses are raised on a four square mile section of the ranch for just that purpose. Rush Creek horses have a reputation for being extremely tough horses, and are sought after by endurance riders (who race in 100 mile events across all kinds of terrain). My friend John Guehlstorff was often called upon by the manager of the breeding program to help with "classifying" the new born horses each year, and I went with him many times for these events. It was a lot of fun, and a chance to see real cowboys at work!
On one of my visits, I got to ride a ranch gelding as we explored the pastures with the new mares and babies.
Lost Mom
These ranch horses were smart. As I was riding along, my horse spotted a mare and baby well away from the rest of the herd. He knew that was not right, and he decided that he was going to fix that!
We took off like a shot! (He did not ask me if this was OK!). This time, I did have a saddle on him, so I was much better able to stay with him. I could see what he was up to, and just enjoyed the ride!
We were following a cow trail, which wandered through the tall grass in the pasture, headed toward the stray horses. All at once, the horse took a quick side step (at a full gallop) and I felt myself swinging off to his right side. It was a struggle to stay upright, and not go flying into the dirt.
Then I saw the reason for the side step.
An eight-foot long rattle snake was slithering down the trail. (Well, it sure looked that big, especially while adrenalin was running through my body!)
Smart horse had this thought:
"I can deal with this snake, and the idiot on my back in one swell foop! I will just dump the rider on the snake and be done with both of them!"
Well, I fooled him, and managed to stay on top. I did get a far too good look at that snake, though!
Yet another death defying day in my life!
Flying
I once heard it said that a pilot's life is hours of shear boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror. Well, that may not be totally true, but sometimes...
I was a member of an airplane club in Phillipsburg, Ohio. The club owned two planes: a two-seat Cessna 152, and a nice four-seat Cessna 172 with an autopilot system. That made for nice cross country trips if you liked to sight-see from above.
I was teaching at the Air Force Institute of Technology in Dayton, Ohio at the time. One of my better students was graduating, and he had bought himself a graduation present. It was a nice Mooney four-seat plane, that was based in Peoria, Illinois. He asked me if I could fly him, his mother, and girl-friend over there to pick the plane up, and I agreed.
My student was a military pilot with a lot of time on the books, I was a reasonably experienced pilot with no where near as much time. I was flying my Cessna 172, my student was in the right seat, and the two women were in the back. We took off after work on what would be a two hour flight over to Peoria.
We were headed into the sun, so it was a bit tough to look forward. To the side, it was a great view of the farms over Indiana.
We were about 30 minutes out from Peoria when it happened!
Boom! Total silence!
Actually, there was no boom. It just felt that way. The engine had stopped.
The silence was deafening! Both of us up front sat straight up and started trying to figure out what had happened. I checked the fuel gauges, and we had a full tank on the right side (there are two tanks, one in each wing) and about a quarter tank on the left side. That meant fuel was probably not a problem. But, just in case, I switched the fuel control from the left tank to the right tank, and the engine immediately fired back up!
Wow! That was a relief. Losing an engine in a single engine airplane is a big deal. You never think about such things when you drive a car. That engine just runs for hours at a time, all the time. So does the engine in an airplane. They seldom have problems. Unless you run out of fuel.
Aircraft engines are much more reliable (and expensive) than car engines. They need to be. If they quit, you do not just pull over and call for help. You will have to find a spot to land, and do so quickly. We were both doing that as we explored what might have happened.
The loudest sound you will ever hear in an airplane is the silence when the engine(s) quit!
Well, we survived, and calmed down. After landing at Peoria, we checked the left tank, and found it empty. The fuel gauge was what was broken. There was no problem with the airplane, other than that gauge! If we had been doing a better job of flying, we might have known we had flown on that left tank too long. But we both trusted the gauge, and were bitten by that mistake!
Lesson learned!
Nervous Flying
I had to fly my plane back to Ohio in the dark. I had practiced flying into my small field in Phillipsburg, knowing I would do this, so that was not a concern. What was a concern was how my idiot brain played more games with me.
Every bump, or stutter in that engine was a sure sigh it was going to quit. An even louder sound is the silence you might hear if the engine quits at night! Now, where are you going to land? You have absolutely no idea what is on the ground below you at night. The best you can do is find a road, and try to land on or near that, and pray!
An airplane engine's smoothness is inversely proportional to the distance from shore if flying over water, and the darkness if flying into the night!
At last, that is what your brain does to you!
I flew that entire flight back to Ohio, sure the engine was going to quit at any moment. That one fuel event shook my confidence in the engine. I spent most of the flight looking closely at the ground to find the road I would land on if needed.
I survived, in spite of my brain playing its evil games!
Excessive Fears
Some folks are afraid of everything, it seems. I suspect they never got to experience the risks associated with this life as they were growing up, and never figured out that most of the things they fear will happen, never actually happen. Well, they might happen, but statistically, the odds are extremely small that they will.
Us silly human beings do not seem to believe in statistics very much, it seems. Look at all those weird people throwing cash away on lottery tickets so they can win 100 gazillion dollars. They have as much chance of doing that as they do getting hit by lightning at the same instant a 747 lands on their head. Still, there goes that cash, just in case.
The odds that the car next to you is going to zoom into you because he cannot see you is very small. Not zero, but most of the time, it ain't going to happen. Still, some of us are constantly fearful that it will happen.
Maybe it is being reckless not to think that it will. But getting your brain to process everything that "could" happen, moment by moment in your life, is a sure way to suffer a brain lockup, and end up in trouble.
I try not to do that. I am very aware of my surroundings, something drilled into me as a pilot, but I weigh the odds of each potential threat being something I should take action to avoid, against my instincts that say it is not really a risk. If I am wrong, I will have to deal with the situation as quickly as I can. Most of the time, I get to enjoy the moment, not fear it.
Enough!
Fear is your mind taking control of your body, and forcing you to think about death! Not fun! But, we all have to deal with that at some time or another. Hopefully, that time is far off, not just around the corner. You cannot live much of a life if you are frozen with fear about what "might' happen. So, you push the fear down, swallow hard, and press on. That is my take on fear!
Wrapping Up
Well, it is 6am now, and I think I have my brain under control. The fear is fading.
I am sort of sleepy now, but we will have to see if I get any more sleep.
First, I have to feed the cat. He is fearful he will starve to death if he is not fed NOW! OK, with that done, I can try to sleep again!
Hopefully it it not in the middle of the night when you find yourself reading this!
Night, night!
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