This notion that if we let our guard down, if we pause to appreciate the beauty in our lives, we are tempting fate and fate will inevitably punish us. This strangling, paralyzing, deprecating fear of happiness. It is worse than our reality, much worse than our present. It is the apple of my internal enemies, my Dow Jones Industrial free falling in my frozen, post 9/11 market. Asymmetric warfare. One bad perceived reality playing its cards so well it defeats the good ones.

I have, in spite of any fell clutch, nothing to fear that isn’t fear itself. I could do myself no greater disservice than to hand my fears, over the back of my bleeding mind, the driving whip. Fear wants nothing more than to rob me of the time that is available.

This present moment could never be different, to entertain any other notion is to lay down arms and wait for death.