Journey of Fear: An Introduction

WOW. That is one egotistical photograph.

24-years-old. Clean shaven, dapper hair, tight-fitting shirt. Edgy and bold. That’s actually a black bedspread behind me. I remember hanging it from the track lighting in my bedroom, and then using a singular bulb as my photographic light source – hence the delightfully misleading shadow effect.

Well, the year is now 2024, and I’m attempting to revamp my entire life. Which would include defibrillating this long forlorn blog. A large, experiential chasm has formed between my 24-year-old self and this current, slightly-weathered 32-year-old version. Thus, I’ve felt that I should add a contextual aside to this first post – as well as an updated photograph (which can be seen below) – before I begin writing again.

There is a 7 year divide spanning my recent string of posts and the one that I’d posted before it – and it was 8 months before that when I last wrote an entry pertaining to my “Journey of Fear,” so to speak. You can read on below to uncover the meaning behind that title. I firmly believe that the past should be presented without filter. I certainly could have gutted and rewritten this introductory post, and then gone on to edit all other posts to suit my current tastes and perspectives. But I feel that this would be a bastardization of my own personal story, and a betrayal to both myself, and any readers who may eventually stumble across this forgotten site. You wouldn’t tear down or alter a piece of art, just because the subject or its creator held views that no longer fit the zeitgeist, would you? Of course not. And thus, I’ve elected to leave my posts unedited. Instead, should I feel the need to offer an addendum to the information presented, I will simply tuck it into the existing text, formatted as you see here.

Should I ever finish writing this story, regarding this Journey of Fear, then I would like for you to understand something which has weighed heavy on me throughout these years:

This road trip that I embarked upon those years ago has proven to have merely been the starter pistol to a long string of transformative years. And as such, I cannot promise – or even suggest – that my ongoing posts will not be heavily colored by the life that I have lived since. I’ve witnessed many miracles, and have pushed myself through much pain. The last six months alone have proven to be my most painful to date – deaths, discomfort, transience, and a cyclical dismantling of all mission and meaning have left me in a state in which I am forced to replace my lifelong question of, “What should I do to succeed?” with a new one: “What feels meaningful?”

And so please understand that, while I will do everything in my power to research and remember the thoughts and perspectives of my younger self in my upcoming writings, my style and perceived purpose will exhibit a sudden shift in all posts dated after 2017. This will eventually prove, I’m sure, to be neither good nor bad, and not truly worthy of concern. Art simply is; it is a snapshot of a moment in a mind. And my sense is that some of the most important photographs of our lives are the ones that we elect not to take, to instead allow memory to impart its artistic license.

And so now, I must ask myself, “What does feel meaningful, in this moment?”

To write. And then, to live. Nec Spe Nec Metu.

-Benjamin D’Amico 2/22/2024