on fear and faith
tiny thoughts on leaps of faith, nuances of karma, and marathons.
Better trust all, and be deceived,
And weep that trust, and that deceiving;
Than doubt one heart, that, if believed,
Had blessed one’s life with true believing.
-Faith by Frances Anne Kemble
The wonders:
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then every scene of our lives is like a mirror, reflecting back our thoughts, intuitions, and feelings. On the difference that perception can make, Mark Manson writes in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck:
“Imagine that somebody puts a gun to your head and tells you that you have to run 26.2 miles in under five hours, or else he’ll kill you and your entire family.
That would suck.
Now imagine that you bought nice shoes and running gear, trained religiously for months, and completed your first marathon with all of your closest family and friends cheering you on at the finish line.
That could potentially be one of the proudest moments of your life.”
see also:
“In essence, being inert, this material world is incapable of giving us pleasure or pain. The world is a mirror reflecting the beauty of ugliness of our own mind. When the philosopher calls this world ‘An existence in virtual reality’, it is implied that one sees the world according to one’s own state of mind.” - The Absolute Law of Karma by Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya, Page 49
Fear and faith are both filters with which I view the world. Admittedly, as someone with anxiety, my lens is skewed more towards fear. The daydreamer in me often thinks of the future: marriage, graduation, having children. I try to think about what these events will look like. There’s faith that my loved ones will show up, and fear that some of us could have a falling out. My past and my future merge, with my past informing the probabilities I can expect for my future.
I know that my anxiety first cemented within me when I repeatedly had fear of the unknown. When I was in college, my father was diagnosed with Leukemia. I would wake up in the middle of the night with my mother waking me, saying we urgently needed to take my father to the hospital. I would get calls at college that something in the treatment and outcomes shifted; I needed to come take care of things at the hospital. I was so used to things changing overnight. So many circumstances and pathways ended with me going to the hospital for support.
Now, to combat anxiety, I fast forward a bit. Yes, there are scenes where I was at the hospital, but fast forwarding, the universe had my back while my dad received a bone marrow transplant. There’s scenes from my past with relationships that didn’t go well, but moving forward in time, the universe led me towards a relationship that is. I wince at inseparable friendships once lost, but I gain courage from the steadfast friendships that I currently have on my side. By fast forwarding, I see the ways in which external events outside of my control supported me in ways that I did not expect.
So now when I struggle, can understanding that I will one day fast forward be considered “a leap of faith?” And what is faith, exactly? These are a few quotes that have buoyed me:
“Faith is the willingness to give ourselves over, at times, to things we do not fully understand… the full engagement with this strange and shimmering world.” - Alan Lightman
Faith…is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go.” - Alan Watts
“Faith, in its broadest sense, is about far more than belief in the existence of God or the disregard of scientific evidence. Faith is the willingness to give ourselves over, at times, to things we do not fully understand. Faith is the belief in things larger than ourselves. Faith is the ability to honor stillness at some moments and at others to ride the passion and exuberance that is the artistic impulse, the flight of the imagination, the full engagement with this strange and shimmering world.” - Alan Lightman
Faith can be an adventurous plunge into the unknown, a surrender to whatever will happen. Instead of trying to dispel away fear, faith can become accessible right now by choosing ideals which we give ourselves over to. We will have to sit with fear, and choose to hand ourselves over anyways with wonder and curiosity. There are currently many unknowns in my life. I’m moving across the country to California. My relationships and ways of showing up for people will need to change. I’m going to start a PhD program, where answers and methods of getting those answers will be uncertain. I’ll need to believe that there are answers to be uncovered, and that there are new truths to find.
While I hold fear about all that can happen, today I’m curious about the possibilities of what this new life can look like. Can I get a new exercise routine, a writing routine, a beach-going routine? Will I be able to remain in closer contact with my friends, prioritizing our FaceTimes and calls more than I can on the East Coast? Will I be able to make it a priority to come back for special events? I’m choosing to have faith in the 26 years of relationships that I’ve built. I will not know, but I am embracing this uncertainty like an old friend with an open heart, wanting it to teach me new things.
Because whether or not I intentionally choose it, I have a religion. Right now, I cherish rigid perfectionism instead of flexibility and resilience, and I don’t want to worship these ideals anymore. I don’t want to make a God out of ego and lust; but from Love instead. I don’t want to believe that institutions and consumption of more goods will save me, instead of myself. My new religion is making the most out of things as they are. I don’t want to surrender to fear; I’d much rather surrender to faith.
Karma is so much more nuanced than “what goes around comes around.” Karma is: you can manifest your reality by being intentional and choosing the kind of energy that you want to put out into the world. If you put out a certain kind of energy, that energy will come back to you in multiples by way of your reality. According to a quote that succinctly summarizes the interplay between karma and destiny:
“Self-efforts (karma) are given the name of destiny when they bear fruit.” - The Absolute Law of Karma, by Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya, Page 71
I can either move to California with fear, which will likely make me tight and anxious and fearful to reach out to new people. But I could also move forward with faith, in which I believe that my relationships—old and new—will flourish. I can believe that I will learn to take care of myself well, that I will be open to the challenges. And I believe that the act of having faith can create a reality where all of this happens. Because the belief in my future will influence my present decisions. I don’t believe that everything in my life is predetermined and will be wonderful and okay. I accept that not everything will be wonderful or okay, but I trust that I will be anyways.
I can’t help but to imagine that the universe rewards this kind of thinking:
“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed.” - Terence McKenna
Things I’m keeping an eye on (and you can too!):
I have been reading and loving a lot of newsletters by Nicole at starting from nix. I got this Terence McKenna quote in her newsletter on self trust. In another piece called life lessons from 2022, she shared another quote that resonated with this post: "Faith and fear both require you to believe in something that hasn't happened yet."
I’ve been on a Heather Harvilesky kick, reading What if This Were Enough?, How to Be a Person in the World, and Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage. Here’s a funny comic from How to Be a Person in the World, which I think depicts the concept of manifesting a life based on what you believe well:
Community Center:
If there’s anything you’re reading, writing, feeling, eating, organizing, please share. For any other comments, feel free to reach out via Twitter, Instagram, or email. Sending lots of love.
