Fear of a Thing Inspires

Fear is an excellent driving force. When I first began college in 2010, I was afraid of failing classes. I studied my ass off to ensure that didn't happen. So it didn't. When I was given the opportunity to interview for the Video Production position at Armstrong, I was terrified that I would get the job, and that I wouldn't. I'd never gone out for a job I really wanted before. If I did get the job, what if I couldn't do it? So I researched, I practiced interviewing...and I got the job. And I'm doing pretty damn well for never touching a video camera before, and with minimal experience with editing film.

But when I got the hang of classes at Armstrong, I stopped caring if I didn't get all A's. Honestly, I just stopped caring about school. There is not one class right now in which I participate, in which I put forth all the effort necessary to do more than average work. I've never gone a full semester of not speaking in a class before...but that's what's happening. I've become that person in the back of the class taping pictures of eyes on my eyelids to appear interested. I still worry about assignments, tests, but only enough to make sure I don't scar my record with D's or F's. I'm worried about my 7-10 page paper for my Intro to Literary Theory class, because I don't really know what I'm doing. I don't have a solid grasp of my own thesis, or how I'm going to incorporate two different 'isms' (psychoanalysis is one so far). I've been in the class so long, it's hard for me to argue against the way of critiquing via the 'isms' of theory, so I'm doing what I've been programmed to do (and I wasn't programmed all that well). In the effort to balance views, I asked my husband to ask his SCAD teachers if I could do an interview with them on my topic--H.P. Lovecraft's "The Outsider." None of them believe in the worth of literary theory, and that's what I need. But now, I'm terrified. One of his professors actually said yes (probably because he's in such a good mood. He's just been given the option of turning one of his books into a movie--can you say PAYDAY?). I haven't felt this short of breath, this anxious and hand-wringingly stupefied since high school. I said I'd get him the interview questions and a summery of what I'm doing by Monday. That's one weekend to get my head on straight. Suddenly, this assignment means more to me than anything I've done since starting college. If I can prove to him that I can write, even a little bit, I might gain some kind of inside track that could help me if I get accepted to SCAD. Even if it doesn't, I just don't want to be a disappointment--my husband has awed them with his talent, I don't want his professors to think badly of me. Suddenly, my writing has meaning again. Call me shallow for caring what this prestigious author thinks, but it's kick-started a fear that will make me take this paper seriously. Fear has energized this lethargic writer, and I want to take advantage of it.