Battles and virtues

Funny how we end up despising that which we are. When every move we make is somehow scrutinized, we just spend our lives perfecting our masks in an effort to make them look natural and real. Maybe it might be easier to be ourselves in a foreign land where no one knows us and where we can just blend in the crowd. Let's be honest for just one second here. While we might act all strong and confident, in the end there's always that lonely night when your true face is revealed and it shows the one feeling that you try to hide so much: fear. Life is scary like hell. And I don't think that there's a particular moment when it stops. Routine is the only thing that might put an end to the fear. When you've gone through the motions so often that it becomes a mechanical mindless act, when you can predict every single twitch that comes next, that is when you stop being afraid. That is also when you stop being alive. While humans might generally be averse to fear, it is also what keeps us focused and lucid. Nothing is more exhilarating than making a choice to face your fears and to let yourself fall into the unknown. Fear is an integral part of life and it makes us evolve. Without it, we become simple shells blown away by the wind.

Then again, you need to choose your battles. There is a reason why people are afraid of standing in front of a running train and that is a fear that should NOT be faced!

I also think that something interesting comes out when you do something that you're afraid of, so I try to take things that I'm not sure that I can do. And this was certainly one of them. I didn't feel like I was right for this at all, and I wondered how to find truth in a fairy tale.

Ryan Gosling