I'm afraid to put my thoughts out there into the ether. Thoughts are... just thoughts. They're fleeting. They are expressions of ideas that we have at one specific instance. You can learn about how somebody perceives the world by reading their thoughts and you gain insight on their thought process more than their specific beliefs. Even if somebody makes a statement, they're a different person then who they were when they started the sentence compared to when they finished it.
^That's a little nit-picky but what I'm trying to convey is the idea that though I may have written a thought down, it doesn't represent who I am now. It's a snapshot into the way I was thinking at the given time. And moreover, it's a snapshot of the emotional state I was in while writing during that day. Was I angry? Hungry? Sore? Stressed? Elated? All of those emotions will directly effect the tonality and subject material of my written voice. So many factors... not enough control... Sweet Pennebaker Johnson!!! I just can't handle it.
I fear posting my thoughts because I assume people will judge and define me today for the ideas I was thinking about at XYZ given time. That and I'm afraid if I don't properly communicate my message, they will misinterpret it. There's no feedback so someone may just go on misunderstanding me with out me knowing. Reason tells me that I shouldn't care what people think but that doesn't stop me from fearing judgement. However, I've learned and continue to learn that insecurity and fear are the most crippling attributes a person can hold onto. More so than lack of money or resources, fear holds people from accomplishing the things that they truly want to.
I'm a pretty confident person relative to the rest of the world I'd say. I don't mean that in an arrogant or self-righteous sort of way, I've just heard people say "Oh you'll have no problem, you're a confident dude" when volunteering me to do something ridiculous.
Well the truth is, I'm the most terrified person you'll ever meet. I am constantly wanting to do things and am not doing them because I'm afraid: Asking the girl out, raising a question in front of smart people, showing songs I've written to other people/musicians, sticking up for myself or a friend (that's the worst one to screw up). I'm constantly afraid and very often it cripples me and I leave a situation thinking "coulda, woulda, shoulda!"
I hate it, but it happens ALL THE TIME.
Yet I recognize that there are certain behaviors that come easily to me that others may be terrified of: talking to strangers, public speaking, singing on stage, or even walking across the country. The reason that I'm not afraid of them is because I've done them or similar things before.
I have an analogy to explain this a little more:
People are like tape measurers. We all start out nice and unexperienced with all this tape (human potential) wound up in us. Now pull the tape out an inch. That exposed inch represents unknown areas in our lives that we fear. Some people have a 1/2 inch, some 1 1/2 but in general we all have a relatively constant and similar capacity for the amount of fears in our life. At all times humans have ~1 inch of fear in their life. When you work past that one inch of fear, you pull out the tape and now you're left with one inch of life experiences (things you don't fear) and a new set of fears. The amount of fear people have never changes. But every time you conquer a fear you pull the tape measurer out and simultaneously expose yourself to a new set of fears whilst adding to your life experiences. Eventually, we run out of tape and thus run out of fears. We're left with an extensive tape of life experiences. This I call self-actualization.
I know its a pretty loose analogy, but what my point is, is that at all time all humans have a relatively similar number of things that they are afraid of. The difference is what we're currently afraid of if we have fear. We have the option to be crippled by those fears and never explore and beat them... thus leaving our tape of life experiences at an inch or two, or we can attack our fears which lengthens the tape of life experiences and exposes us to a new set of next level fears.
The more fears you conquer, the more life experiences you will have and the more things you will be less afraid to do. So when people acclaim someone for being brave, it's not that that person has conquered fear. It's more likely that they've conquered that specific fear.
Things I think I think...