No Fear

Happy 4th of July! Are you celebrating this day of Independence just like the rest of your Uncle Sam cap-donning neighbors? Of course you are. That’s why you’re inside reading a blogpost that you found by clicking a link on Facebook. It’s ok. We all do it. Every one of us good-hearted, true-blue Americans browse the social media on our country’s anniversary. Don’t feel guilty.

With that being said, let me paint a picture for you that will be the theme of this post. For full effect, please download "Born in the U.S.A." by Bruce Springsteen and play at full volume. Either that or "Fear of the Dark" by Iron Maiden. Actually, a combination of both songs will make this post stand out even more. Give that a try.

Good old Rock Steady and myself went on a classic adventure this afternoon. Trying to flex our Pecs and be as masculine as possible, the two of us headed out to Snow Canyon to play our hand in the recreational activity known as “spelunking”. For the record, I would like to give a Barney Stinson digital high five to 1940’s American caver Clay Perry who came up with that ingenious verb. I feel like a flexing arachnid superhuman whenever I tell a Miss that I am spelunking. Go ahead; say it out loud right now.

Cut to Snow Canyon caves where the two of us donning headlamps, a backpack, a GoPro, and a Canon Rebel XS were about to embark on a spelunking expedition. For the record, the caves that we were jumping into are well known for being the make-out point in St. George, Utah. Rather than take a chick to the top of the hill overlooking the city, one just takes them into the caves in hopes of successful spelunking.

Giggity.

As we embarked on some manly potholing, (that’s what the British call it) there was a group of high school kids making the same journey that we had prepared to embark upon. That’s ok; we can all share caves can’t we? As they descended into the darkness, one of the girls held back, making an extravagant display of emotion regarding her fears of luring herself into Mother Earth’s igneous abyss. The following conversation occurred:

P.A. Green-shirted Anti-Bear Grylls: Loud and violently “I DON’T WANT TO GO IN THE CAVES! I JUST DON’T! WHY DO YOU GUYS MAKE ME DO THINGS THAT I DON’T WANT TO DO ALL THE TIME?!”

Momma Four-Eyes: “Dear, calm down, there’s nothing wrong with these caves. People go into them all the time. What are you afraid of?”

P.A. Green-shirted Anti-Bear Grylls: “WHO KNOW WHAT’S DOWN THERE? FOR ALL I KNOW WE COULD GET TRAPPED, OR THERE WOULD BE AN EARTHQUAKE, OR THERE WOULD BE A RATTLESNAKE!” (Which in fact there was) “I’M JUST AFRAID THAT I’LL HAVE A PANIC ATTACK OR SOMETHING. DIDN’T YOU SEE THAT MOVIE 127 HOURS!?”

Momma Four-Eyes: “Alright sweetie, if you don’t want to go into the caves, that’s fine. I’ll just stay at the entrance with you. And if you’d like, you can just put your head in my lap and I’ll caress your hair and sing lullaby songs until you fall fast asleep alright?”

Ok, delete the last sentence that Momma Four-Eyes uttered, but her responses were almost as pathetic.

As the teenager continued her tantrum, I had my daily epiphany about what I absolutely DO NOT want in my future spouse wherever she is:

Fear.

As kids we all have fears. We are afraid of going down that really tall slide at Lagoon, or riding the really big rollercoaster, or swimming in that really deep lake, but as we grow older, those things fade away when we understand the lack of logic in our emotion-driven fears. Fear happens when we create a false reality in our own minds about what will happen if we make high-risk actions. In this girls instance, she had created a false-reality of the roof of the cave collapsing on top of her and burying her alive for three days while she had to saw off her leg mid-tibia with a rusty, dull Swiss Army Knife.

But none of that was real.

If I were to ask P.A. Green-shirted Anti-Bear Grylls what her reasoning was behind not spelunking, she would have given in her mind a very valid argument as to what was so risky and negative about it. But in reality, in a logical sense, her defense was a simple rush of emotions triggered by a mind-set that she created of non-existing events occurring in her life. That’s all that fear is.

From an adult’s, or as I like to call it, a big kid’s perspective, what is there to be afraid of in this world? Is it the deep, dark caves? Is it the 70-foot cliff jumper’s Mecca in Gunlock? Is it the possibility that the really hot girl we’ve been eyeing will be turning us down for a date? Why do we create these semi-apocalyptic scenarios in our minds that are the cause of total and utter destruction of who we are, when from a grander perspective they are merely farts in the wind?

I don’t know. I don’t know why fear exists. There is much more to this post in months to come. Heck, for all I know there could be a Week of Fear brewing sometime in October. But for the moment, and for that instance when I saw a shriveling teenager sit at the entrance of Snow Canyon caves waiting for a good couple of hours while her friends and peers enjoyed some of the best spelunking that they ever had, I came to an understanding that wherever my wife is. She had better not be afraid.

Cut to Black