Scott's Philosophy Notebook

But in other respects, I am somewhat insecure. I tend to feel unattractive at times. I attribute this to the time I spent as an actor, and faced constant rejections from directors. But whenever someone shows an interest in me, I am pleasantly surprised, and there is confirmation once in a while that I am indeed an attractive person.

There seem to be two types of insecurities, which stem from the same source. The two types are insecurity in the self, and insecurity in one's life. Both stem from fear. Insecurity in the self comes from feeling unwanted and/or unloved; fear of being alone. Insecurity in one's life comes from facing the unknown; fear of (you guessed it) the unknown. We've all faced moving to a strange new town, and having to find our way, dealing with getting lost numerous times, not knowing where the local laundromat is, or where one can get a decent cup of coffee -- to say nothing of the "bad neighborhoods" which we should avoid if we want to remain among the living. Also we have faced times when we realize that, ultimately, we are completely alone. We can trust no one. We may have roommates, husbands, wives, brothers or sisters or parents, but in the end, it's all up to us how we lead our lives. We face many trials through life, and sometimes, even in the worst of times, there may be nobody there to help us out. We depend on other human beings for our very survival, but what happens when another human being is nowhere to be found?

Identifying a problem is the first step in solving it, of course. So we have identified the source of insecurity; fear. But in what way do we solve this problem? How do we conquer these fears?

In the end, I don't think we can. There are many short-term things we as human beings can do. But these fears are so deeply rooted in us (and for good reason, I think) that to overcome them completely would be akin to going against human nature. What if we weren't afraid of being alone? We would spend all our time in a box, making nothing of our lives, and generally degenerating into little gibbering idiots incapable of taking care of ourselves. What of fear of the unknown? Without that fear, we would launch ourselves headlong over cliffs just to discover what it was like to fall a thousand feet to our deaths.

But there are things we need not be afraid of, if only to improve the quality of our lives just a little bit.

Are you afraid of being alone? Let's look at the facts. The earth's population is increasing at extraordinary proportions. There will always be people around you. You cannot avoid them. But which ones can we trust? Which ones will love us for who we are? Well, we all feel unloved at times -- again for good reason. And just knowing that it is part of human nature, a skill in fact for better survival, helps us understand that this insecurity is a darn good thing. And of course, we get over it eventually if we foster ourselves and our egos. Getting through these phases can be easier if we, as philosophers (for by the very definition -- love of thought -- all human beings are philosophers by nature), simply turn to our fellow human beings and say "I've been thinking that insecurity is a good thing, without which we would all become gibbering idiots incapable of taking care of ourselves." And in the end, there will only be one of us. (Even if you believe in reincarnation, life's experiences can make one different every time.) Take a look at one thing that makes you different from everybody around you. That one thing is by nature attractive, because the most beautiful things are those that take us by surprise at first, and after we have a chance to take a careful look, we find the uniqueness in them. One unique thing about me is my unusual insights into life. I share these with people. They say, "Boy, that's really weird of you to say that, Scott." But they think about it, and say, "At the same time, that's really neat." And I smile, comforted in the fact that I am not yet that aforementioned gibbering idiot.

Fear of the unknown? Here's a personal experience of mine that you may relate to. I have shied away from theatre in Seattle, and essentially ran screaming back to Alaska, because I know people up here and know nobody down there. I didn't know Seattle, and being the "small-town boy" that I am, I need people I know around me. I will return to Seattle someday, when I know people down there. But theatre is a big commitment, and I could not make that kind of commitment in a town I did not know. There are chances that we can take, when trying a new town and a new job, and if it doesn't seem to be working out, we can simply quit and pull out before things get too bad. But one does not "quit a play" as one might quit a job, because theatre people tend to never work again in those kinds of circumstances. So we can wait for others so that the unknown can be faced en masse, or we can simply inundate ourselves with knowledge until such point that the unknown becomes known. "The best thing for being sad," says T.H. White in The Once and Future King, "is to learn something." Sometimes, that's all we have. Knowledge cannot be taken away from us, and is perhaps the most powerful tool we can ever have against the unknown. And besides, it doesn't take that long to learn something anyway. In the grand scheme of things, what's a month of study, when you can reap a lifetime of benefit from it? And five years from now, you can look back and laugh at the time you were actually afraid of that strange something that had you paralyzed in the night, that same something that is now like an old friend, safe and familiar.