What am I afraid of?

When I was a teenager, I noticed mental illness ran in my family, and my worst fears used to be that I would go crazy without realizing I was crazy.
Five suicide attempts, three nervous breakdowns, and six years of therapy later, I had finally decided to accept that I was mentally ill.
It’s not a lot of fun, but at least I had sort of come to terms with it, that is, I had accepted that I was crazy.
Short and simple.
Then my therapist informed me that I was not crazy.
“Crazy people are delusional, they have little or no grounding in reality,” he said during one session, “Whereas, you, Dan, are firmly rooted in reality. You just don’t like it very much!”
Touché, I thought, there goes my excuse!
The bumper sticker reads: “If you aren’t outraged, you aren’t paying attention.”
Maybe that is my problem; I pay too much attention; hence, I swim along in a general haze of outrage on a day-to-day basis.
I want to make a difference, whatever that entails—war protests, volunteering at homeless shelters, recycling, etc., but I usually get so overwhelmed by the immensity of the task at hand and how futile my attempts seem at making any sort of dent. Then I notice all those other people who just couldn’t seem to care any less, and the outrage kicks back in, and then I feel both overwhelmed and crabby.
Not making a difference. That’s one of my fears.
Probably the best classes I took at Los Angeles City College were Professor Enrique Auza’s Principles of Economics I & II. By “best” I mean that the information was both extremely interesting and had useful implications in just about every aspect of my life, especially as I struggle to make sense of society and discern what motivates people to do the crazy things they do.
Economic factors seem to be the underlying reasons for most of the horrible things that go on in the world today--which is not to say that makes it okay, but it helps me understand things better.
One of the historical figures we discussed was economist Thorstein Veblen, who was a brilliant theorist, but something of an outsider. He died in ignominy, and his inclusion in the book was something of a surprise, since I have asked other professors at LACC and now here at UCLA if they knew about Veblen, and I usually just get a blank face in response. Anyway, one of the things that I admired about Veblen is when he taught for several years at the University of Chicago he always gave his students C’s, no matter the quality or caliber of their work.
Many of his students took issue with this grading policy, and eventually he was fired over it, but I understood the point he was trying to make, viz. in the long run, pretty much everyone is the same--no different or worse than anyone else.
We are all reduced to the same mediocre equality.
Moreover, let’s face it, he wasn’t wrong.
There are only so many Einstein’s and Mozart’s out there, and even they, with the passage of time, will fade from the collective memory of humankind.
For example, John Maynard Keynes, an infinitely more successful economist-- the man who single-handedly saved capitalism and shaped the way governments would adopt fiscal spending policies around the world, is not a name recognized by many people outside the field of economics, especially with the passing of each generation.
He himself knew this, and he wrote that, "...in the end, we are all dead." His deepest regret in life was not drinking champagne more often.
Unlike most folks, I did not come to L.A. to become famous. I realized a long while back, that fame didn’t really interest me, but I do want to count for something, and thus, it was no small irony when I fell into the trap of working for various fancy-schmancy catering companies wherein I dissolved into a mere shadow of a human; just enough to fill out a tuxedo and serve up plates of food, pre-ordered months in advance, then silently dropping back to a wall to stand at attention for any of the glitterati who might happen to want another glass of champagne. I became invisible and was treated as such—totally disposable, inherently replaceable.
That part of my reality I really came to hate, especially after getting hit by a car last year, and nobody came to visit me while I was in the hospital or later at home.
So, I have become afraid of being alone, of not having any friends, that no one would notice if I finally succeeded in killing myself.
Weeks would go by before a neighbor noticed the smell.
Not very happy thoughts.
But what am I most afraid of?
I am afraid that I will slip into a self-fulfilling pattern of feeling bitter, depressed, and hopeless, which inevitably ends up in some disaster that I had consciously or unconsciously created, because paradoxically, it is when I’m in “survival mode” that I feel most comfortable; or if not comfortable per se, at least that is what feels most familiar to me.
I suppose that implies what I really fear is success.
Maybe that’s because I am so uncomfortable with what defines “success.”
I know I do not want to become some corporate hotshot with a fat wad of bills in a money clip, who struts about thinking he can buy his way through life, even if he cannot afford manners.
I do not want to have power over other people and what they do with their lives, so I have actively chosen not to have children, and while politics fascinates me, I would surely go mad as a politician.
In fact, there are a lot of times when I just want to slip away to some sparsely populated island in the South Pacific---nothing but some elephant seals, the occasional pelican, and me.
However, I know eventually I would get lonely for human companionship.
Now that’s irony: I have come to dislike people as a whole, but I still long for that soul mate, someone who understands me and accepts me, for good or for ill.
That’s pretty much what all of us wants, isn’t it? Someone to love, and to be loved in return.
I reckon Veblen and Keynes were both right. So, I’ll start looking for a medium-priced bottle of champagne, and maybe I’ll meet Mr. Right at the liquor store.

Maybe not.