The Un-Candidate #2

     Another way, a huge way, to redeem myself for my cowardice is to run for the Select Board, I think it's called up here. I've told some people I'm running and then told them I'm not. The fear of my phobias is too great. Specifically, the phobias with panic attacks at meetings and with public speaking. I go back and forth. I wonder, "Is it better to live in fear and trembling in fear and trembling trying to face phobic situations or live in slow death constantly castigating yourself for your cowardice both past and present? Routinely having these flashbacks of events in which you've ruined your life and the lives of others. Even causing the death of a foster child who committed suicide and thus killed her unborn child because you didn't pursue hard enought getting her the counseling your social worker told you she needed?
     Is it better to face a life where you put yourself into phobic situations that can result in you feeling panic that makes you want to run and also face this dreadful feeling that is commonly and accurately described as "worse than dying". Or is it better to retire to a life of slow death by recrimination? Some say a third choice is self-forgiveness, but that's too soft and cloying for me. In some life, I must have been a warrior because I have his code of honor.
     It is much easier to sit here in my two stacked-together plastic chairs (I weigh around 250) and wax philosophically that there is value in each battle with the unending panic either clutching you, trying to get a hold on you, or taking over completely. I thought I would do battle with the panic by going to the local discussion at the library about the opiod epidemic. Everything is an epidemic today. I would go to learn about a big problem in the community like every Select Board candidate should. Then the time came to go. Then I started backing out. Was it worth an hour and a half of trying to fight down panic? The unenlightened would probably just talk about drugs as if the drugs were jumping down people's throats and pushing through their skin. There'd be no discussion of what motivates people to take drugs, and how can we help them not to be motivated to take drugs. What would it take? It would just be more of blame the gun, blame the drug. If I said anything about drug use being a people problem, I'd probably be looked at critically. It's those damn drugs jumping into people, Nickerson. Let's get with the program! After one and a half hours of this ordeal, I'd be so worn out and down that it would be difficult, maybe impossible, to go to the gym. Even if I went. it would be a blah workout. The weights would be twice as heavy, and I'd have no drive to lift them. So I talked myself out of going to the drug discussion.
peternickerson12@yahoo.com  352-359-0850  Philosophy Major, '68.