You are well acquainted with my fascination with edges, both real and metaphorical. My mind is occupied today with something that skates on the surface of every edge.
—
Fear.
It entrances me. Between what I want and what I can have is a gap, a sliver of space, black and sharp. If I could exist forever, it would be there. Time does not slow. It stops.
Breathing patterns my desires, my fingers gripping, careful – careful, not too tightly, yet, just a handhold, a place to place. I craft each unbalanced step atop unbalanced step, weaving my wants in and out of the spaces between. One whisper to topple it all. Delicate, half-starved, never pleading, quite beguiling, I push.
What is on the other side is never quite as exciting as what it takes to get there. This journey is the fear of not getting what I want.
Fear of danger? A different, but no less intoxicating fear.
This I draw with tight circles; it is in the presence, a cult of personality enforced by unrelenting form, hands and will driving you back against the wall. Leaving you uncertain despite an unshaken trust in me. I make you falter. I make you shake. I make you fear.
But I never make you doubt.
Fear indeed is intoxicating. You would make one fear.. I am sure of that but never doubt.. that appears obvious to me at any rate.
I love fear.. any kind. It makes me shake and shiver.. but still enjoy it.
You hit it on the nail again.. perfect!
Psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom writes of an elegantly simple and bold practice, which involves strangers pairing up and asking the other:
‘What do you want?’ over and over again.
He says:
“Could anything be simpler? One innocent question and its answer…..within minutes the room rocks with emotion. So much wanting. So much longing. And so much pain, so close to the surface, only minutes deep. Destiny pain. Existence pain. Pain that is always there, whirring continuously just beneath the membrane of life.”
There is a variation that I believe you will deeply appreciate.
First, you make the person uncomfortable so if they prefer to sit with legs crossed, you make them open them, or vice versa. I’m sure you have your own ideas here. I always imagine a ritual of sorts would work well. In the original variation, you open with the words ‘you are loved’ followed by:
‘Tell me what you fear?’
After each reply, you repeat the question. And this continues for as long as it takes, for as deep as you both dare go.
How sharp is your blade D’jaevle?