Agoraphobia

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Salaams and salutations, my name is Mikaal Sulaiman and this is the Black Enso podcast.
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For those of you who might not know what an Enso is, it's part of the Zen practice of drawing a circle in a single stroke and the resulting and perfections of the circle represent a person's inner, emotional and creative life printed on the canvas.
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In this context, my paint is everything you'll hear.
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And my canvas is this podcast, imperfections and all.
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Welcome.
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Today's Enso is about agoraphobia.
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The fear of fear.
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The dictionary definition of agoraphobia is quote, the abnormal fear of being helpless in a situation from which escape may be difficult or embarrassing.
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It is characterized initially by panic or anticipatory anxiety, and finally, by the avoidance of open or public places.
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End quote.
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Fear of being helpless, fear of being embarrassed, fear of anticipatory anxiety.
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The fear of fear.
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Agoraphobia is usually characterized by someone who is terrified to leave the safety of their home.
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So of course, I'm talking about agoraphobia during the panic of a pandemic.
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During a time when we're forced or at least encouraged to stay in doors.
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But I want to talk about agoraphobia on a few different levels.
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The first level is an incredible story that my mom told me once.
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It's actually how I learned what the word agoraphobia was for the first time.
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Uh, actually before I get into that, I have a quick story, a true story.
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Um, when I was like five or six, I learned what paralyzed meant one day.
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My older brother, Amir told me.
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And serendipitously that same day, I decided to ride down a relatively steep hill in front of my home with my eyes closed.
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I was very adventurous.
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Anyway, these two things learning about the word paralyzed and writing blinded had nothing to do with each other at the time.
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But these two facts collided when I eventually blindedly slammed into a part flatbed truck and flipped over it.
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I happened to land near my front yard, a few feet away from the bottom of the hill.
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And I was screaming at the top of my lungs.
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I'm paralyzed, I'm paralyzed.
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Uh, my whole family came running out of the house along with a few concern neighbors.
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Rest assured, I wasn't paralyzed but I did break my leg.
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Link to a photo post accident in the show notes.
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So back to my mom's story, when I first heard the word agoraphobia, I was in my early twenties and my mom told me a story.
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She said she heard on the radio driving to work.
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For context, at the time 9/11 recently happened and the entire country was steeped in anticipatory anxiety, terrified of more attacks.
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The news story she heard was about a woman who happened to live near LaGuardia airport in New York city, who was crippled with fear to the extent that she couldn't leave her home.
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She of course became an agoraphobic, but the ironic and troubling turn is that a plane crashed into her house, killing her and others nearby.
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It's unclear if the plane was landing or taking off my mom didn't remember.
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But what we do know is that the safety of this woman's home, which happened to be near LaGuardia airport, turned out to be the most dangerous place for her to be.
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After hearing that tragic story.
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I never forgot the word agoraphobia.
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Now, although my mom swears, she heard the story on a drive to work.
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It turns out it doesn't actually exist.
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And might not be true at all.
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I did a deep dive online.
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I of course won't call momduke's a liar.
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So we'll chalk that up to the Mandela Effect.
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If you look into what the Mandela Effect is, try not to get lost down the rabbit hole, It's nuts.
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But true or not, the LaGuardia story makes me think a lot about our current situation.
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Where is a safe place.
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I've of course been thinking about the idea of safety a lot lately.
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FedEx packages or ordering food delivery.
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I contracted COVID-19 early in the first days of the stay at home order, late March.
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I didn't get it nearly as bad as most.
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I was comfortably in the hospital for five days, no ventilators or anything, but plenty of applesauce.
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That time in the hospital alone made me wonder if I was in a safe place though, especially since it was so clear no one knew what was going on.
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Even the highly trained doctors at the prestigious hospital I was at.
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When I left, after being at the hospital for five days, I was told to quarantine at home, but no other instruction other than that.
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They essentially gave me a hardy pat on the back and threw up the deuces, be safe bro.
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I guess that's really all they could say though.
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Being someone who's never struggled with an illness before, especially an incurable one- currently, I've never felt more unsafe.
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I know everyone feels that way, in one way or another.
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In these uncertain times.
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All the uncertain times emails we've been getting, keeps reminding us of all the uncertainty.
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Be safe, bro.
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It's interesting.
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How so much of the world, at least early on in March and April, was living the life of an agoraphobic.
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Coronavirus anxiety, they call it.
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I feel for people who are already struggling with OCD and hypochondria, I can't imagine being in that state, given the current state of the world.
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So here I've been home alone trying to stay safe.
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Questioning my breathing, my sense of smell, things I touch the air, everything.
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I can definitely admit I'm in a constant state of, like the agoraphobia definition says, fearing helplessness.
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The second level of my thoughts on agoraphobia stem from the recent Brianna Taylor and George Floyd protests.
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Especially considering Brianna Taylor was killed in her own home.
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Or Botham Jean, who was also killed in his own home.
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It turns out racism can infest our safest spaces.
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It's bizarre to think that even at home, I have to remember that I may need to shoot up my hands and say, don't shoot.
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Quote, to be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time, end quote.
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It's amazing that James Baldwin is still telling fortunes to this day from the grave.
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A friend of mine sent me a text about a month ago.
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They heard something from a friend of theirs who works in law enforcement.
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A section of the text message reads.
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The NAACP has received credible information that some of the white nationalist groups and white supremacy groups have initiations happening this weekend.
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As part of the initiation, it is said that they will be looking to snatch black men and boys and hang them, shoot them, torture them and kill them.
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end quote.
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That weekend.
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When I got the text was just after the inspiring and beautiful protest in honor of Brianna Taylor and George Floyd that took place all over the world.
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Everyone said enough is enough.
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And yet the white supremacists saw the protests and said, enough is enough.
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It's confounding to know that there are still people who hate from the soul perspective of race.
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But I'm not confused.
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I know what it is and why it's dying so slowly.
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But that's not my point.
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My point is that when I got the text, I actually decided not to go outside that weekend during a pandemic.
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It was obviously an easy decision.
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But what a time to be alive when I need to make life or death decisions about leaving my own home to grab almond milk.
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But after all, even my home might get infiltrated by gunmen who shoot first and don't ask questions at all.
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About a week ago, I went for a walk in my neighborhood at night just to get some fresh air and stretch my lungs.
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Before I was a block away from home, a police car passed by me and then made a u-turn and parked on the same side of the street I was walking on with their headlights pointing at me.
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Mind you, this is after the protest.
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The police cars windows were rolled down.
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Since the officers were wearing K95 masks, the officers tried to smile with their eyes.
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Gave a head nod as I passed, be safe bro.
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Maybe they made a drastic u-turn at 10:00 PM at night, just to say hi or more likely the age old, politeness as monitoring.
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You already know clothing stores, pharmacies, and so on.
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Should we forgive them for they know not what they do.
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I kept it moving.
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I didn't nod back.
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I squinted with my eyes while wearing my quarantine mask as I looked into the dark car.
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Like the agoraphobia definition says, fear of anticipatory anxiety.
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Which can be a default state when you're black in America.
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Agoraphobia has made me reflect on a third level as well.
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The most tender and dangerous part of me, the safest place I know, my ego.
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If ever there was a place we can all recoil into and remind ourselves of how right we are, or how smart we are, or how much better than anyone else we are, the ego is the perfect place to rest and resist the dangers of growth.
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As I worked on this episode, this Enso, I had a conversation with the same older brother, Amir, a poet.
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He's going to be on the next episode more on that later though.
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But he thinks of the ego as being within us, think of a Russian babushka doll or Gollum within the cave.
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But I think of the ego as a place that we can all enter and leave.
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Of course we're usually half in and half out most of the time, but there are times when one can fully leave that place.
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I realized that there is a creative agoraphobia that one can have.
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When someone is locked in their egotistical space, inside themselves, unable or unwilling to leave that space and grow, maybe even flourish.
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Because we're all convinced that, surely, the ego space, which is nonjudgmental or critical, is going to protect us from the possibility of getting hurt.
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Like the agoraphobia definition says, fear of being embarrassed.
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Before starting this podcast, like many creative agoraphobics.
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I was cozy in the affirming and supportive ego space.
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I never worried about being told that I'm corny or weird or hack or whack.
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I was chilling in a 5.1 surround sound system and my ego space with just chill, bro, on repeat.
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The bridge after the second hook, amazing.
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But the truth is so many pseudo motivational speakers will remind us, that ain't it.
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Alvin Toffler says quote, the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn unlearn and relearn, end quote.
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I heard that when listening to Chris Do from the future, which is a company, not a place I went to in a DeLorean.
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He talks about how you and I, our hypothesis, a thesis statement that needs to be proven time and again.
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We need to use something like Toffler's growth, triangle of learn, unlearn, and relearn, who we are day to day.
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We have a sense of ourselves and we need to discover when that changes to something new and unlearn that old way of being, and then be willing to learn this new characteristic or interest or whatever.
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We must always challenge the hypothesis about ourselves.
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The ego space is like what happens to fleas in a matchbox.
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Our ceiling is reinforced so often by self-talk that we can't imagine going beyond our expectations.
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So we don't, I've told myself many things over the years, but being a podcaster within the sea of so many other podcasts was never one of them.
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It was more like, that's corny bro.
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You can't possibly have anything new to say, but that ain't it.
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Matt Essam talks about how we are living in our own movie and our memories are on repeat.
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So of course we're bored with our own story.
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But it doesn't change the fact that our movie is worth watching.
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Maybe only a few will come to my art house movie theater, or maybe a lot.
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But my story, our story, is worth screening.
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So the fear of fear has subsided and I've gotten over my creative agoraphobia, for the time being.
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And I'm moving out of the ego space and I'm trying to brave the new conditions of the great unknown, as the definition says, open or public place, the growth space.
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Now my surround sound system, I'm listening to keep going, keep growing, on repeat, the baseline is ill.
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This podcast is an offering to you and to myself, actually.
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Black Enso will be a place where we discover people's stories and journeys.
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We will celebrate their Ensos in all of its imperfections.
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In the next episode, I'll be talking to my older brother, Amir Sulaiman, your favorite poet's, favorite poet.
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He's a world class performer with a world of knowledge swirling in his mind.
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On the episode, he talks about writing on Ramy, the Hulu show and his feelings about not being nominated for an Emmy award.
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And most interestingly, he dissects the idea of whether or not we're living in a simulation.
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Spoiler, he says we are, but it's not in the way you think.
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You can find the Black Enso show notes on www.blackensomedia.com and follow us on Instagram@blackensomedia.
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Tell your friends, tell your enemies, we welcome everyone.
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Salaams and salutations.
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Be safe bro.