Living Without Brakes I

When I was ten, my mum took driving lessons from a guy called Paul. Paul had a deep sense of urgency, probably had Christians to persecute or something. But I digress. One day, as my mum tried to master the accelerator-brake-clutch combination, something went wrong. A few alarm bells went off in my head, so I unlocked the door and jumped out of the vehicle. A few feet after, the car came to a stop. So did my interest in learning how to drive.

Almost two decades later and my apathy for driving contrasts deeply with my love for Formula 1 motorsport. The average vehicle is a toy compared to the worst Formula 1 car. My fear of driving comes with the early understanding that control is quite the responsibility for any of several things could go wrong as the most marginal of errors could have an insane ripple effect on lives you are unaware of.

Fear is a very “interesting” concept, one which is becomes twice as interesting when the dread is acquired in childhood. Childhood fears are a lot like palm oil stains, insanely difficult to get rid of. Each day is a visit to the stream, an attempt to get an extra layer of filth out. Going toe-to-toe with a dreadful situation as a child leaves a relic ingrained in the tapestry of your life.

For some reason, we often associate fear with our childhood and teenage years, as if the transition from adolescent to adult make you immune to feeling dread. Yes, there are no monsters under your bed as an adult but there are dreadful things in this life. There’s failure, there’s poverty, disappointment. There’s Tinubu too.

From experience, fear draws its strength from its ability to cripple and keep the fearful in one spot.  Adulting has left me with a bit of anxiety, anxiety about falling short and all the other forms of being on the receiving end of negative feedback. On tricky days, I catch myself saying “what’s the worst that could happen? Because what’s the worst that could actually happen? Failure? Pfft…easy work, I have failed before. I can go again.

Bones, one of my favourite poems features the line, “Fear is a growling animal with no teeth” and I think perspective that makes life a little easy to deal with. The way I see it, life is a coin, fear on one side and everything else on the other and the best life is a life of “doing”. Life is fraught with risks and danger. Yes, you can lose but you can also win. So, let’s go.

My alarm for the last year has been “What’s Up Danger?” by Black Caviar and I like to think I have listened to the song enough time to have come a long way from opening car doors and jumping out of vehicles. Long story short, I am learning how to drive next year.

Recommendations:

1.    This article on Lionel Messi’s unique playing style.

2.    This Ted Talk about figuring out what you really want.

3.    Titilope Sonuga’s album of poems.

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash