Fear underlies much of the modern Western experience. We fear failing, at anything. We fear that the mask of our multiple persona's will slip, revealing nothing, or much worse. We fear not having what our neighbour has, or of his or her getting what we now have. We fear the ladder we have climbed so we try to kick it away. We fear descending that same ladder. We fear drugs but also the missed experience of not having taken them. We fear for our children yet we fear our adequacy as custodians of their future. We fear not being liked or loved and we fear abandonment.

Fear is endemic. We have time to think, more time than any previous generation in any era or place. This freedom is the perfect conduit for positive thought and reflection, but also a bi-way for dark introspection. It may be a choice or it may not. If we have evolved to deal with threat, very particular threats that concern the finding of food, water, shelter and of survival against predators, then what happens when the fundamentals change? For most Westerners, they have changed, and so radically, that the consequences have yet to work their way through.

This does not speak to the inevitable. Self-awareness and empathy can help us understand the new environment and explore ways of adjusting. Fear doesn't have to rule us, even if it abides within us.

Sitting at the China Visa Application Service in town today, my mind did a temporary and entirely unexpected flip back a decade or so. Maybe it was the array of customer booths. Perhaps it was the rows of chairs with anxious-looking applicants. It could have been the view across Hyde Park or even the fact that I was just in an office building on the fifth floor.

But there I was again. At the Kobe Immigration Office. Reams of information in hand. Passports and application notes and a steady drip of misinformation from our boss ("Of course you won't need to leave the country to validate your visas") allied with the stern looks of guards, attendants and clerical staff. Well, flooding back it is, together with a large dose of the excitement and culture shock that Nadia and I felt at the time. But we got through, with a trip to South Korea, of course.

The CVAS could not be more different really. Well organised, easy to navigate, friendly staff, a short stay. Admittedly I was only getting a tourist visa, but still, how different two seeming similar things can be.

Nelson Mandela

less common Light
klaxon of freedom's sweet disarray,
dancing in eternity