Constantly scared.
A sleepless night in Corfu being tortured by night demons 👹 of my own making.
Corfu, July 2024. I woke up to go to the toilet, I think it was about 2am. Normally I’m straight back into sleep. Not this time though…
“You’re not very experienced in driving a trailer on your truck - how are you going to park it at the job?”
🫀 thump thump 🫀
“Have you even thought how you’ll fit the chip, the heavy and the chipper onto your trailer? Of course not, you imbecile”
🫀 thump thump 🫀
“You don’t even have ramps for your trailer so even if you could reverse it into your workshop drive (which I doubt you can because that’s something else you’re not confident at) how are you gonna get the chipper into the trailer?”
🫀 thump thump 🫀
“You’re not even used to using your chipper yet. Bit risky using for the first time on a job isn’t it? What do I know though? I just remember and process everything.”
🫀 thump thump 🫀
“Remember you’re behind in your woodland work and there’s no space to dump the chip because some bright spark (~you~) decided to get two massive logs and then fail to mill them which has blocked the parking space. Genius move there buddy.”
🫀 thump thump 🫀
“You are never going to be able to manoeuvre the truck and the trailer in busy streets without hitting something. You’ll be there for hours, blocking the roads and ending with an expensive crescendo involving an insurance claim and someone else’s property. You may even kill someone. For fucks sake Jamie.”
🫀 thump thump 🫀
My subconscious didn’t stop. I think I lay awake for about two hours in the hot Corfu night (28ºc) sweating and feeling anxious being tortured by an entity with unfettered access to all of my fears. The massively elevated heart rate was an added bonus.
“Also, don’t forget for some mad reason you also started a teaching job. Thanks for that mate; as if I didn’t have enough to worry about.”
🫀 thump thump 🫀
I was convinced that every negative thought that bubbled up was a fact. I was convinced I couldn’t do any of it. Now I must add that this isn’t unusual. It happened once in December of 2017 and then became a regular feature of December nights.
I meditate. Not as much as I used to, but the practice is still there. The general principle is that in the whole of your life there are only three phenomena present in the whole of your life regarding your consciousness:
Thoughts & sensations appear
Thoughts & sensations persist
Thoughts & sensations disappear
A basic function of the act of meditation (as I understand vipassana) is concerned with nurturing your ability to mentally step back so that you notice, rather than be distracted by and engaged with, each of these three stages. I know this. I’ve trained it.
“The trailer service people aren’t going to be happy with you – they had that trailer in their workshop for two whole weeks blocking up their space. You insensitive moron.”
🫀 thump thump 🫀
However, on this sweaty, sticky and painfully hot night, somewhere between 2am and 4am I had apparently lost all of my meditation powers. I had become distracted by waves of doubt and anxiety. Completely entranced by the subconscious belief that beneath all the exterior posturing of confidence that the world sees, I was nothing more than a constantly scared human.
Here’s the thing though, I am scared – constantly.
They know you’re not a real teacher you know. Especially the second years. Fraud, fraud, fraud.
🫀 thump thump 🫀
In fact, being scared is now more or less a default state because everything is new and everything is very real. There’s no one left to blame but me. I am the lead. I am the team, there’s no escaping it. Being scared has been the prominent way I have experienced most of my days in treeworld whether in Treeschool, Tree Company or The Estate. And now, thanks to the rod I have inserted firmly into my own back, The Business.
“Why did you even change careers you cretin? That was a cushy thing you had there and it the challenges were known and we could do it. Now you’re back down to the bottom of the heap, you’re a no one again. A total and utter worthless pleb.”
🫀 thump thump 🫀
So far, only a few times have my fears come true and they’re both cramp1 related. Every other time, they have not. If anything, my fears and mindset have helped me pay more attention to matters in hand. It’s not fun and I don’t enjoy the mindset of being scared, but it is important to note that it’s nearly always mostly fine. Nearly always – sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes the worst things happen.
“You said you’d never get finance, and there you go, financing a chipper. What if you don’t make the money back and suddenly you’ve got an expensive machine, no use for it and a monthly commitment. Did you think about that you wally?”
🫀 thump thump 🫀
Being scared and having this mindset is annoying2. It gets in the way of everything else because it comes at a cost to others around me. I’m crustier and more crispy. Less tolerant and less jovial. I tend to have more of a thousand yard stare. But here’s another thing though, I know this mindset will pass. Once I’ve done a few jobs with The Business I’ll be fine loading the chipper onto the trailer. I’ll be fine using the chipper. I’ll be fine manoeuvring the truck and the trailer. I would have figured out how to dump the chip at the woodland. That log will be milled.
You get the picture – everyone of these fears will be overcome as I learn. Then there will be new fears, because there always will be more to learn. Learning new things is a hard and uncomfortable experience – especially as we age. I’ve chosen to learn an entirely new career pathway. The very fundamental way in which I provide for my family (money and attention) has changed. It is not a small thing by any stretch of the imagination.
“How do you like this now eh?, I’ve got you and you’re never getting back to sleep. You’ll spend all tomorrow being exhausted. I’ll teach you not to ignore me. Now you know who is in charge of this meatsuit – it’s me. I’m the driver and you’re nothing but the wheels and the steering.”
🫀 thump thump 🫀
So yeah, it’s scary and I’m scared. For the most part, I am grateful to my fears when they inform me and get out of my way. However, when they interrupt my mindset by attempting to dominate my attention (which I’ve tried to simulate by littering them in with the prose of this post) here’s what I say to them though.
Also, I got back to sleep. It is a special power.
🛌
Once was when driving at 70mph on a three lane road in the fast lane I did actually get cramps in the leg responsible for the accelerator pedal. It was a horrible heart beating experience but I didn’t die, crash or create a situation. I made it home fine and remembered to better manage my salt and electrolytes when working and sweating. Cramps in a tree are less horrifying than I imagined they’d be and now I simply find a place to stretch and work the cramp out. Worst case, I descend and take a five minute break. Sad for me.
A informed reader could say I have imposter syndrome. However, I’m not a fan of the concept. Whilst imposter syndrome is not a recognised mental disease, using the phrase implicitly frames the experience as disease with signs and symptoms. In this framing, the solution space is a complex slow pathway composed of slow burning solutions involving a supply chain of professionals, informed by scientists informed by studies that connect to an infinite web of interventions. I choose not to use the concept because my solution space is a basic and fast technique – Acknowledge the fear, thank it and take action on it.
First - most things are better with music : https://youtu.be/QBy_ACHvEJs?t=1772
This piece soothes my soul.
"So yeah, it’s scary and I’m scared."
Damned right it is! Still, come Monday, I'm confident you'll go through with it.
And what does that make you? A brave man.
Brave for saying out loud that you're scared, and brave for still going through with it. We men aren't supposed to be afraid, but that's bollocks! 'Fear eats the soul' and not being allowed to talk about our fears weakens us. Boys don't cry, right? We're (still) expected to do all the dangerous, dirty and hard work, protect women and children from violent lunatics and if needs be go die in a godawful war (my heart weeps for those Ukrainian men who have to do trench warfare, this time with constantly loitering drones overhead. I even pity the brutalized russians who are sent out to die senselessly in meat-waves ... it's just ... awful, horrendous ... no words ...) And women need to stop gratuitously belittling men, lest they want to be left to fuck themselves. The existence of ugly prostitutes should give pause for reflection about the sexual dynamics in play.
I digress ... back to topic: I've come to think that
Danger is real - Fear is imagined
Example: I have no head for heights. I can sit on my chair, in front of my computer watching some video of someone doing something silly at a great height -- building a skyscraper, let's say -- and I'll feel queasy, a sinking feeling in my stomach -- vertigo. I know full well that I'm sitting safely on a chair but that fact does not get a say ... is it my empathy with the 'vulnerable' person in the video that triggers my fear? It could have been me? I call this feeling fear. It is imaginary; it is a product of my mind.
On the other hand; I often work with dangerous woodworking tools. My table saw blade will open my wrist in a second and leave me a couple of minutes before I bleed out. This is danger. Am I afraid? Naaahh ... I've done it for decades, you'll be shocked by how closely I let my fingertips pass the wood-eating machinery. Real danger, but no fear. Why? I know what I'm doing, I'm concentrated and focused -- on high alert! Anecdotally; When I've asked guys how they lost the tip of their finger, they always say; "I was just cutting scraps into firewood on the bandsaw when my thumb suddenly was in the way ... " --- "I was just ... " Vigilance relaxed ...
What's keeping your heart pounding and your mind accusing, my friend, is your ability to model/visualize the future in your mind, to plan ahead, to foresee problems (and likely to suggest solutions even when you're not consciously thinking about it). This is a sign of high intelligence; the ability to run a simulation of the future, troubleshooting, seeking solutions ahead of time.
Of course, the timing is not random: on the last day (night) of your holiday ... knowing that on sober monday morning, workaday reality has to be grappled with and wrestled to the ground ... and you've got a full plate in front of you: Treeschool teaching, your own Tree Company and work on The Estate ... Anyone not a bit apprehensive about those commitments would be an idiot -- and that, you are certainly not -- hence the anxiety.
I've never met you, just read your substacks ... but for what it's worth: I'm not worried for you at all, my friend. You'll do very well. There is a reason Treeschool offered you a teaching post: "That Jamie ... he's a bright lad -- we should keep a hold of him." They're not wrong, and they're not stupid. You'll be fine.
In ten years time I reckon you'll have expanded the Tree Company so you have two or three crews working for you; good boys, handpicked by yourself, reliable guys with good judgment; the cream of the crop from Treeschool where you're still teaching part time and enjoying every time you see the light of understanding brighten a student's eyes.
In twenty years time I see you and your love living on a nicely renovated smallholding at the edge of a deep forest, outbuildings converted to small-scale sawmill, lumber shed and woodshop. Your home will have a tight roof, two sound chimneys, beautiful fireplaces downstairs and Norwegian woodburners upstairs, and I will have made all new windows to measure so as to keep the cold winter winds out (shipped them over in a container :-) When you come home from work your cats will lie waiting for you, purring at the sight of you in a dry, warm, sundrenched corner of the log-pile, waiting for snuggles and food.
Reality begins with a dream :-)
All the best to you, my friend!