Fear is a funny thing. It is what has been driving me up and down the hills of San Francisco for months. The fear being multifaceted…fear of loss of body and physical control…fear of loss of driving and the independence that goes with it. The real issue being how to react. After all, some fears are well grounded. Some are less so, being oblique manifestations of something else. So, how to chart a course through all this?

The answer in part has to do with the body. I have had to tune into mine in new ways. Which means dealing with some unwelcome news. For example, that I have to watch out for adrenaline. The latter being quite capable of overcoming my ever-weakening muscles. Which leads me, full circle, back to the very fear impulse that spikes adrenaline in the first place. Or to put this in other terms, this forces me to be ever more alert for scary moments…and their physical manifestation.

How else to keep going with a serious neuromuscular impairment? No other way. This is the path. Life on the neurological edge.

Which brings us to the Republican national convention…one of the most remarkable outpourings of paranoid fervor this nation has managed in many a year. Is there a difference between reality and reality TV? Surely there must be. For me, there is an even deeper issue. What is reality TV? What is the Duck Dynasty? People roll their eyes when I admit to this level of popular cultural ignorance. And I’m not bragging. Or maybe I should be.

Which now brings us right back to fear. Whatever can be said of it, the effects are greatly magnified by compressing it into a small pixelated screen…and delivered in bits, interspersed with strong suggestions to buy things. It’s enough to make one drive a disabled van very fast up Twin Peaks. As I say, fear is a funny thing.