What is the difference between fear and cowardice? The dictionary definitions are somewhat similar:
fear |fi(ə)r|noun an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat:
cowardice |ˈkou-ərdəs|noun lack of bravery; lacking the courage to do or endure dangerous or unpleasant things
If I’m feeling fearful, it simply means that I’m aware of the dangers that may be lurking around the next corner, but that I’m ready to stand up to them. I don’t know what is around that corner, but I’m putting up my dukes, so to speak. If I’m feeling cowardly, it means that I am actively avoiding, if not running the hell away from the things that frighten me. A fearful person can be brave if given the opportunity, or if armed with enough self-confidence and support. A coward never can be, unless you’re the Cowardly Lion, which, by the end of the movie, most of us understood that he wasn’t so much cowardly as lacking confidence. But I’m losing the plot.
I’m writing this to own up to my cowardice. Oh my, yes. In the last few years, I’ve let cowardice shape almost every decision I make. I don’t write about professional topics that interest me because I don’t have the courage to stand up to scrutiny. I don’t write about things I’d like to change about my job because I don’t have the courage to defend my positions, especially if those positions are contrary to the library’s (or the profession’s) mission and purpose. I lack the courage to speak out because I like comfort, I want to be liked (not respected), I like having a roof over my head and steady paycheques, even though my satisfaction with my current position continues to speed downhill. I write very obliquely about things that happen in my personal life because I don’t have the backbone to face the reality of how my poor choices and inability to communicate causes my relationships to fail again and again.
Gandhi said “A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.” That’s me in spades. I tend to squelch any demonstrative feelings, whether positive or negative, because I’m afraid that those emotions won’t stand up under critical inquiry from others or from myself. There’s so much more I’d rather be doing, so many more things I’d rather be saying, but I won’t because I lack the stomach to defend myself against the critics. My strongest critic is, of course, myself.
When I’m wrestling with a particularly nasty depressive episode, I find that my ability to express passion for even the slightest thing is severely compromised. In his book The Noonday Demon, Andrew Solomon described depression as being “the flaw in love.”
“To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose, and depression is the mechanism of that despair. When it comes, it degrades one’s self and ultimately eclipses the capacity to give or receive affection.”
This has been the reality of my daily existence for at least the last three years. More if I’m being honest with myself.
It would feel wonderful to care enough to change, or rather, to feel that I deserve to change. I would be relieved to not feel this daily decay, to understand that my back will not break with the slightest wind, to have unshakable faith that this storm will not lay to waste whatever foundation I’ve created for myself. Depression has turned me into a coward who is afraid of her own reflection because she scarcely recognizes the wraith that stares back at her.
When I am depressed, I don’t believe I deserve affection, or praise, or attention. When I feel like I don’t deserve those things, I run away from anything that challenges me. It’s why I considered surrendering Ella to a cat rescue organization, because I believed I was a failure and a flop, and the only thing I know how to do in an unpleasant situation is to shut down, tuck my tail and run. It’s why I talked myself out of a job this afternoon, under the guise of “being honest about my limitations.” Mark Twain once said “You are a coward when you even seem to have backed down from a thing you openly set out to do”, and that’s exactly what happened to me today, has happened in the past, and until and unless this bout with depression passes, will likely happen again.
I hate to leave this without answers, or a plan of action that will make people think I’m doing something other than wallowing, or getting tripped up by my own narcissistic skirt-gathering, but now I’m at the point where just feeling unburdened enough to admit this openly feels like just the right amount of victory that I’m capable of handling at the moment.
(Photo by seriykotik1970 – http://flic.kr/p/Bj76V)