An odd thing has happened to me in sobriety. I have difficulty manufacturing fear the way I used to.

To me, fear is a sensation of danger, something that will cause turmoil, suffering, pain, or death. It's a human impulse response designed to motivate us to protect ourselves and our well being. In the case of death, fear feels to me like a combination of worry over the unknown, over a life not fully lived and being cut short, and for those that depend on me to be left without whatever support and care I provide. And to me, anxiety is fear with the simple added element of time. Anxiety is fear over what happened recently, or what is yet to come.

Being mostly free of fear doesn't mean I am brave. I'm not turning into Batman and seeking violent criminals to battle for the common good. I don't want to do free solo climbing - I still have a healthy, even irrational fear of heights when I am exposed to heights in the outside. And I certainly still feel anxiety. I have a love-hate relationship with deadlines at work, as they motivate action but also weigh on me when I am not working.

But things that used to give me fear and fear-based anxiety rarely do so anymore. I don't have passing fear-laden thoughts about my plane crashing when I board a flight. I don't passively worry that my sons are minutes away from meeting with a terrible accident every time they leave the house. I don't think my pet has escaped my home and been run over by a car in the street just because I haven't seen her in the house for a couple of hours.

While my fear and anxiety is held at bay, I certainly can become irritated. The most common example I encounter daily is related to the things I have already acknowledged I cannot control, and have already communicated to someone else asking me questions about that same thing.

I believe most of today's fear and anxiety over world events is related to a desire for control over other people's actions and a limitless expectation of safety. If someone is entering my home, I have every right to tell them how to conduct themselves in order to enter. And if I want them to do things like wear a mask, as with removing shoes or not touching my artwork, I can control these things and I am comfortable doing so. It becomes a gray area in a private business or restaurant, grayer still in a mass public business/area such as a Walmart or a stadium. Your control decreases and your likelihood of conflict with your control measures is greatly increased when you have a larger and more diverse base of people participating.

The current and ongoing pandemic with Covid is a good example. Viruses and parasites exist to live off of human and animal hosts, and they survive by moving from one host organism to the next. Were I to lose my life or a loved one to a virus, I simply cannot imagine blaming another human being for going about their lives, and essentially blaming society for the spread. It doesn't seem rational to me to do that, although people certainly do hold others responsible for spreading disease. Collectively speaking, mankind has a certain arrogance about itself. That arrogance allows us to accomplish great things, like flight, space travel, and advancements in medicine. However when aimed at forces of nature, to me, mankind's arrogance seems misguided and inadequate to accomplish any reasonably measurable and achievable goal.

Likewise if I or a loved one were faced with untreatable cancer or some similar progressive disease that causes death, I see it as a partnership to work with doctors and medical staff for treatment and I overwhelmingly trust in their ability and efforts. I occasionally see and hear such anger in some patients and family that blame medical personnel for the demise of their loved one. It's disheartening, since I honestly believe people generally mean well and have good intentions. I also don't view sickness and death as a punishment directed at me. Our universe is by nature chaotic, and not every outcome can be predicted or rationalized. Sometimes good people suffer or even die, and bad people thrive.

I don't believe God manages our lives on Earth. God just is. There is mostly good in the world - yes, I still believe that - and God is the source of this. God is the source of life, love, and is the creator that allows us to think and bond and love one another. But God is not a puppet-master and we are not puppets. We are born and we evolve and become products of genetics, our surroundings, and our upbringing.

There is much joy and love in this world. At its core, humankind generally has good intentions and much commonality amongst our goals. But when confronted with divisive topics - pandemic, gun control, the distribution of wealth as examples - we increasingly demand of mankind to manage and control the situation. A large part of society that craves safety and certainty will want freedoms reigned in via rules and control. Control leads to conflict and then to anger. What do we do when we are angry? We want to vent. Anger becomes the primary emotion being expressed and dominating the headlines and on social media platforms. I've noted a common them of "Do Something" in the world, I assume a plea to solve problems that likely have no straight forward solutions. But the plea is still presented, and anger builds over society and government's inability to deliver despite relatively common goals.

I wish I could write a book and make a million dollars on the topic of how I solved the problems of fear and anxiety in the human brain, but I am afraid I can't explain the concept by anything other than following the Serenity Prayer, and acknowledging fully that there are things I can control, things I cannot control, and that I MUST recognize the difference in order to live a sober and fulfilling life.