I decided that I was not going to live in fear anymore, after being frightened as much as one can and still be amongst the living, it seemed like it would be an easy thing to do. But, it is not.
Everyday I have to fight back fear of an altogether different kind than when I was a child left in a dark room with only my own imagination, or running around in flight mode after being shook near off the planet. Now, every day, no matter how hard I try to filter what and how much fear I am subjected to, it is mediated AT me through other peoples televisions, movies, the internet,cell phones and now, an onslaught of competing engineers, insurance agencies and politicians trying to run for cover in case of another major earthquake.
We are all now, for the most part, interconnected and fully entrenched into a network of fear. However, I remind myself of this blog title "I Decide" and then, I decide to over-ride the fear with only one way that works for me...I read, think and write.
Writing works to dispel much of my fear because in the act of writing about anything it requires a great amount of reading and thinking and living first, researching of the most important kind, personal experience and the act of thinking about others experiences with enough energy and effort to block out most emotion. Fear is an emotion that is happiest inside a mind unoccupied by anything worthwhile.
Lately, I have begun to read different material than what I was so preoccupied with in the past. I have found myself lacking in reading journals and books from the scientific community and have been wading around in very hard to understand books and journals that make me THINK hard in order to understand what is written. This has had the most profound effect upon removing the fear that tries to attach itself to me while I am living in Christchurch, a city beseiged by underground monsters and aboveground monsters called politicians, insurance agencies, engineers with conflicting statements and buildings everywhere that demand strict attention before entering.
I was just getting a real handle on this when I was asked to allow another set of engineers through the flat that I am currently living in and writing from. Within a few hours they decided that they do not deem this place safe enough and all of us should evacuate immediately. I asked them what I was to make of the other three engineering reports that said this flat was built like the proverbial #!$* house and they looked at me blankly and said, well, a building built in 1900-1920 could not withstand another big shake and my building would be inclined to collapse. When I told the very young and smart engineer that this building was in fact built in 1949 after the major earthquake in Napier in the North Island and to the codes required for major earthquakes and had already experienced the largest earthquakes and was thereafter deemed solid as the proverbial #!$* house by several other prestigious engineers, he simply said, well, I wouldn't live in it and we are going to request everyone vacate. Methinks this engineer might be a fear monger.
At this writing, I and one other are still here. Everyone else has fled. I am waiting for another engineer to show up this morning, along with my friend with a drill to do some structural testing to these walls that everyone is just guessing as to whether they are reinforced or not. I have been inside this building during some fairly decent aftershocks and never felt in danger. However, I am fighting a ticking clock to save my haven, my home from the fear based extrapolations by a group of engineers that were not even smart enough to know what age the building was, and then...the very smart and young engineer also told me, well, anything built before 1970 is now pretty much suspect...I think he needs to go back to engineering school with generalized statements like that!
Well, I've gotten that off my chest. It will prove interesting to see how this works out. It is important to get yet another appraisal as I have had three groups tell me safe, one now tells me no, do I listen to the no because I choose to be afraid, like the others that split out of here last night, all young, all without any questions of their own, all use to looking at professionals as if they all know what the heck they are talking about...
All I can say now, is the fear I struggle with today is the fear that is so contagious with others that it affects my ability to make my own educated choices about whether my home is safe enough and not having to operate on one no against three yeses...I will decide after today's outcome with people I trust.
If CERRA gets here based on the last report before I can furnish an alternative...none of us will have any choice but to vacate and the building will be pulled down when they get around to it and all of us owners will still have to pay our mortgages because some young and smart, but not very bright man gave one conflicting and fearful view.
