CouchFearing

Writing is bad. Doing is good.

I write.

Somebody I know is CouchSurfing, so I visited the site.

You know, there are two things; one is living, and the other is being alive. I do the latter, just being alive. It seems to me that CouchSurfers do the former, more active of the two, living. Or, I should say, Living!

I moved this site recently, and as a result I have been rereading a lot of old pages I have written. All I can say is it all seems as close to dead as one can get without actually dying. With that as preface, I stumble on to the CouchSurfing site. I visited a bunch of profiles, lurker-style (without becoming a member), and realized what I guess I have always known; there is a world out there, a life worth living, and people, people, people, all beaming and exuberant and generous and alive! And I am deliberately avoiding it all.

I was going to call these CouchSurfers fearless. But that implies that fear exists. For them—and I know because I was like them once—fear is insignificant. It is essentially non-existent in their lives. As I contemplate what I would be like as one of them, I realize that in that transition, fear would go out the window long before anything else, the very first thing, really. It is an essential requirement of the kind of life they live, that fear be given no quarter, because there is too much of everything else. There is no room for fear.

This is not to say they are reckless. Recklessness and fear are not opposites. In fact, if one retains one’s fear, then recklessness is the only alternative to stagnancy. No, CouchSurfers use care and common sense and intelligence in their exploration of the world and new relationships; in fact, CouchSurfing is predicated on an open-mindedness that precludes fear and requires the involvement of the intellect. You don’t just need a couch to CouchSurf. You need to be a whole person. And that is its siren song for me.

In my lurking at couchsurfers.org, I searched for couches in my area. Just to gauge the local involvement in CouchSurfing. No one in Worcester Massachusetts. A few in my hometown of Northborough. Several in Shrewsbury, next door to Worcester. I imagined joining CouchSurfing. And as an introduction for one just emerging from pathological isolation, like me, I imagined making arrangements to surf a nearby couch, like, in Shrewsbury. I fantasized that my CouchSurfing host, probably used to hosting foreign travelers, would be surprized I would be visiting from so near as Worcester, only a few miles away. Of course, for me that would be essential as a first excursion; I could bail-out if necessary and go home. In addition, such a local excursion would almost certainly force me to explain my reasons. When I played out the scene, alone at my desk, I became very choked-up while describing to Wayne (my would-be Shrewsbury host) that I have spent at least a decade going essentially nowhere but the three streets it takes me to go from home to work and back. My voice became a whisper, I became so contracted with emotion. He could hardly hear me over the noise of the restaurant where we met. I described how I stopped driving and let my license expire in 1991, and thus eliminated most opportunities for unplanned travel, and began isolating in earnest. Becoming overweight further limited my physical movement, and eliminated bicycle touring as a viable alternative to having a car. And that was the story up until I discovered the CouchSurfing web site, read about some of the amazing souls there, and the lives they live. As a result, I acknowledged how fear-centered my own existence had become, and I decided to get involved in CouchSurfing. It seemed logical to be a guest first, before trying to be a host, since my isolation mainly involves staying in my house.

It ended well, in my fantasy. He was not offended for being ‘used’ by someone who was not a traveler and did not really need to CouchSurf; at least not for the usual reasons. And he was impressed by my honesty. I didn’t take it much further than just the first meeting. I think actually staying with him might have been superfluous beyond the initial ‘breakthrough’. Maybe not. And I imagined that my role as host would require that I clean out the apartment; first of all getting rid of all the junk I do not need—just to free-up the space—and secondly to make the place hospitable. It doesn’t need to be hospitable if I am living in fear. Since all I need is a hiding place, it doesn’t need to be clean. And with fear, there are no guests.

Writing instead of doing is bad. What next?