I’ve never considered myself one for taking risks. I was always that kid whose knees buckled at the notion of climbing to the highest diving board. I was deathly afraid of (though attracted to) women. I didn’t get my driver’s license until age 26—simply because I couldn’t avoid it any longer.
Yet, as much of a ’fraidy cat as I am, I’ve been known to experience a certain calm detachment when facing possible impending doom. I’ve been driving on several different occasions when my brakes just plain failed. My inner stunt-driver came to the surface and somehow I survived the ordeal. I don’t endorse this dissociation as a default mode for living. But to see the trauma that you’re experiencing as happening to somebody else, perhaps to a character in a story or a video game, can be an invaluable defense mechanism. It certainly got me behind the wheel of that enticing yet terrifying socially-mandated deathtrap; it got me to first base—in both instances better late than never.
I approach laying out this paper each month with a similar dread—which morphs into a similar detachment; though the results would (probably) be less grisly than a car wreck, I can’t afford the luxury of failure. (Having an inkling of what it would be like to die of shame and embarrassment, I’d opt for the head-on collision.) I invariably find my inner publisher—who is even more miraculous
