My deep dark fears

People like to look back and review the year when it comes to an end.

Last year one of my life story lines is connected by 3 books I’ve read, they all related to my fears. So today, I want to share with you about my deep dark fears, and what I learn from these 3 books.

Most of my fears are too tiny and crazy to tell. For example, if I walk along any high buildings, I will stay a far distance away from the building, because I believe someone will drop a wine bottle from window to hit a hole in my head. Or, when there is a dark corner around me, I won’t  let myself to look at it, because if I look at it, I will see something very strange and horrible.  Sometimes I think I am a crazy. Until last year I read this book . I realize that: Wow, I am not the only one...

My deep dark fears

The author is Fran Krause, who work as a painter.

He collected ideas about fears, and created this funny and sensitive comic book.

Let’s just feel it directly, I wonder how many of you ever thinking Like that:

My deep dark fears My deep dark fears This book is easy and funny. And for the first time, it helped me to look into my own fears from the view of someone else.

Believe or not, since I read this book, each time I am in the situation I just want to laugh.

I don’t know how many of you are scared of facing up to death. I believe every normal person do.

In Chinese languages, there is a word called  “讳疾忌医”, means someone is too scared of knowing himself having serious diseases so he refused to see the doctor. And so am I.  And I even refused to thinking about death. So I never watch movies or read books about dying person. But Last year there is a book came to me.

My deep dark fears

This book has been the #1 New York Times Bestseller in 2016. So I was curious and decided to read it.

The author of this book is Paul Kalanithi. He was a doctor. This book is his first book, and the last book. After he wrote this book, he died, in the age of 37.

My deep dark fears At his 35, his career was going to a peak, but suddenly his health was going downward. He was loosing his weight quickly, his back was hurting deadly. As a doctor, for the first time he was sure he is dying.

He was diagnosed as lung cancer.  His bright future just ended suddenly.

Paul want his life to be ended meaningful so he started to write his life and death, with the  view both from a doctor and a patient.

My deep dark fears During I was reading this book, I try to understand how he feels, the fears at first,  positive hope in the middle, and the acceptance of death in the end. The part that hit me the most is Paul refused be trapped in his tragedy, he faught with hopelessness and keep thinking what is the right thing, and write down to share with the world.

I still fear to die. But I started to thinking about the thing I always refused to think, that is : how to face up with death.

When I started thinking about life and death, the next book hit me again.

Last autumn, there is an art exhibition called Van Gogh and Gauguin.

My deep dark fears

Before going to the exhibition I decided to read the novel based on Gauguin’s life  written by Maugham.

My deep dark fears It tells the story of a  middle age man with successful career,  a wife and children, who suddenly leaves his settled life to pursue painting.

He abandons everything he has ever known in order to follow a passionate impulse that takes him from France to Tahiti.

While I was reading it, my heart kept beating fast and my blood pressure keep high. The man sacrificed everything for art, more than I could imagine. He sacrificed his body, his life and his soul. In the last part of the novel, it was narrated by a  doctor on Tahiti island. The painter was very sick, but he didn’t care, just keep painting until the sickness make him blind. The last time the doctor went to the painter’s home, he is dead. And the wall painting in his house shocked the doctor because they are too beautiful and fulfilled  with life to be painted by a dying person.

Maugham was a great writer, I don’t know how he did it, but he successfully make me understand the secret life of a genius artist, which I would never be. And how the meaning of life could be so clear  so that someone can sacrifice himself without hesitation.

It is ridiculous to say that I always sleep well, but there will be one time each year, I can not fall asleep at night. The unnamed fear and anxious concurred me. During I read this book, I was sure that the fear  is the fear that I can’t find the meaning of my insignificant life. I know it sounds stupid, but this is truly my final deep dark fears.

So I found the solution ...

(I am kidding.)

There are no solutions for everything.

These 3 books changed my relationship with my fears, but giving me no solution about it. So I would keep reading, thinking and experiencing in 2017, just like Steve Jobs said, keep looking, don’t settle.

So, this is my deep dark fears. What is yours?