Fear and Panic

The present financial situation that is engulfing this country (and soon the world) has created several universal byproducts.

o Fear

o Panic

I have known both of them. I want to hang onto the wealth we built and yet I have seen 10% of it seep away over the past month in a series of black Mondays and Wednesdays. And I know it's not over until things shake out all the way to the ground. That's the way it was in 2001 and 2002 when the Dot.Com bust raged across the country fueled by 9-11 and Enron. When it came it seemed never ending. This time it was bad mortgages that triggered the slide and bank and financial institutions are being toppled right and left (or so it seems). But there are enough experts writing and talking about this.

I am not one of those people.

I have to deal with the fear and panic that is coming on like a hurricane. We can see it on the satellite weather maps. We know it is out there raging and we know it will come for us. Every man and woman has to deal with this. This is the battle I have to fight. I move my money to safer ground. I think about cash. But the brittle emotions are still there.

There is no safe place. Not really because the monster that is tracking me is myself.

I have met the enemy and they are myself.

I know that things will shake out. It will be very bloody. I will lose money. Maybe a great deal of money. Things will bottom out. Even Hiroshima in all of its cruel glory eventually ended. Same with Dresden and Pearl Harbor. Endless while it was taking place and now long since resolved. You hit bottom, dust yourself off and figure out how to move forward again.

There is a centered place in our minds. One of peace. It is a hard place to find when a crisis is going on. But that is the great challenge. To find it just then, when it the most valuable. Anyone can be calm when there is no threat. We pride ourselves on being in control but we really have no control except over our mind.

When my coordinator walked out the other day and I was alone again in that terrible job I found myself feeling very calm in my resolve. The calmest I have felt in two months. I had nothing to lose. I was in that place or a place near it.

If I could escape this place for a years I would go now. I would go to India and live in an ashram like Larry Darrell did in The Razor's Edge. The great depression came and went and he was in India seeking inwardly. If my wife would go with me I would move to the south of France in some small town or some Greek Island and just erase the panic and fear that rages around me and that, at times, even paralyzes me and I don't paralyze easy.

I have been to those places where people don't have much money but they still seem to live there lives and find happiness. My wife seeks solace in a sort of avoidance. I seek it in action. We balance each other in a strange way. I love her so I stay and as a result I will have to seek out that centered place here, inside of me. That is my journey. That is your journey because the fear and panic out there is unforgiving and relentless and created by lessor men who in greed sought glory in greed and if you care for the word, irresponsible business practices.

A man alone in control of his senses does not feel unreasonable panic. Put us in a group and we become a mob. Then we can panic as a mob.

I am not going to hide under some rock and cover my eyes and say this isn't happening. But I have to stop caring so much about it. I will do what I can. What I think is right. I am going to begin to distance myself from it. I will create my own India and go there and live. Money is recoverable, Time on earth is not.


Ambika Bhatt wrote this wonderful poem. I hope she doesn't mind my using it.


I feel old
did I tell you that?
I have wrinkles on my soul
did I tell you that?

did I tell you
that I cry in my dreams…?
I writhe in my sleep…
did I tell you that?
I have bruises on my heart…
did I tell you that?
my pain would never end…
did I tell you that?
my nights wander like ghosts
down dark alleys and half-lighted caves…
did I tell you
that you’d have to wait
till I “make” myself??

my “self” is hardly formed…
did I tell you that?
my ideals are in infancy…
did I tell you that?
I learn from mistakes…
did I tell you that?
I cry bloody tears…
I walk through fire each night…
I have a habit of burning my soul…
I can't exist without killing myself…
I am separate from me…
I am only beginning to know you…
it could take me years to reach you…
will you wait?
will you wait?
will you wait?
will you wait?
will you wait?
will you wait?
will you wait?
will you?
how do I know?
how do I know for sure?
how do I know?
how do I know for sure?
tell me…
how do I know for sure…?

I am stubborn …
I search endlessly for answers…
I speak so much you could die listening to me…
would you listen?
would you wait?
that’s what I want to know…
would you wait?
would you?
would you?
would you?
would you?
would you?
would you?
would you?
would you?