Lenore is a dandelion dog. She eats them

 May 15, 2008 – Most of us live with so much fear in so many ways for so long it is easy sometimes to forget just how powerful a force it is in our lives. I see it every day, in so many ways.  And I have felt and do feel it in my life, every day.
  There are many real things to fear in our culture – loneliness,  money, illness and death and the host of sometimes nameless fears that grip us in so many ways when it comes to living our lives – we feel insignificant, incompetent, selfish, unworthy, unentitled, discouraged, unsupported, bound by the awesome weight of life.
  People want to write, but feel nobody cares about their stories. People want to blog, but fear the dangers of exposing themselves to the Internet, or the world beyond. People want to paint, but can’t believe anybody would want to buy their art. Somebody wants to start their own garage, but fears the paperwork.
  Or nobody has ever encouraged them, or told them they could, or should try.
  Encouragement is something I never got much of, and so I am sensitive about it when I think I see the need for it in other people, as other people have come to see it in me, and have encouraged me. I get much encouragement from family, friends, and from e-mail. It is common to fear the Internet, and it can be an intrusive headache, and it brings good things and bad.
  But I do not fear it. I choose to lead a life which includes a dialogue with other people, for the sake of my personal knowledge, my spirituality, my work. I do not want to just talk to or write for myself. I don’t wish to hide from interactions with other people, or block and filter them. Sometimes I want to smash my satellite dish, sometimes I want to hug it. That’s the nature of life, and the definition of a good life, for me,  is how one responds to those challenges.
  Many people are so starved for encouragement they don’t trust it when they get it, or don’t believe it.
   Encouragement is the only antidote to fear that I know of, and even then, it doesn’t cure fear, just sometimes overcomes it and pushes it to the side. So I am learning to encourage myself.
  I am afraid of every book I write, wondering who could possibly care about my life, or want to read about my farm or the animals on it. I was terrified to write my first book, and I remember it was Paula who bought a desk and put it in our bedroom and encouraged me to try and write my first novel, and it took me five years, but I did.
 I was afraid to start this blog, concerned about the work, the complex technology, my privacy – which is, in fact, a battle every day of my life. I feared taking photos – why would I take good photos, and why would anyone want to see them, when I am so technically challenged, and there are so many good photographers around?
  I was terrified at the prospect of buying this farm, and living on it with animals requiring all sort of care I knew nothing about.
  I was encouraged. A number of people, some of whom I know and many I didn’t, and a number of good writers and photographers, and some farmers, too, went to some length at different times in my life, to tell me I could write books, could run a farm, could take photos.
  It mattered. It made the difference.
  I am getting closer to living my life, and I fully understand how terrifying the prospect of living one’s life is. Fear, I suspect, kills more lives than anything.
  I feel it all the time.
  Because I have done something doesn’t make it a good thing or a good thing for anybody else. Half the time, I’m not even sure it’s a good thing for me.
  Choices about life are personal, individualistic, affected by all kinds of circumstance, and I have no idea how other people ought to live their lives, or how that might be defined for anyone else. I do feel, though, that if I ever really do end up living my life, it will not be because I was never afraid.
  But because I am.