This is an essay I had hoped to finish in time for Halloween, as that seemed quite an appropriate release date given the topic. Nevertheless, finishing it tonight, the 24th of November 2025, my final night of 56 seems even more appropriate. I have been considering the topic of fear and the difference between bravery and courage for most of the year. So, sharing what I have learned feels like an important ritual before I begin to celebrate my 57th trip around the sun.
Whenever I host a stage show, the terror I experience during the day leading up to the event is enough to make me vow I will never host such a show ever again. Then, as soon as the show is over, whether it went well, and was well attended, or was met with indifference both in terms of attendance and audience reaction, I am ready to get started on the next one. I was genuinely excited for Debra Matlock and my most recent “Viva Los Feliz” (held in early September at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre), one of an ongoing series of shows we put on celebrating the history, culture and community of Los Feliz. I knew how much fun it would be. Yet, I still experienced enough fear to know it would go well. My wife is an accomplished and acclaimed stage performer. She told me that the day going on stage is not scary for her is the day she will know it’s time to quit. Back when I used to serve as the stage announcer of the weekly meetings of the Los Angeles Breakfast Club, it would be my aim to kick off the proceedings by establishing the right tone and by inviting the possibility of intimacy for all assembled. One day, before going on stage, my friend Sandi Hemmerlein noticed I seemed to be struggling with something. I told her I was afraid I wasn’t up to the task that morning. She assured me that I would be fine once my “stage brain” kicked in. Ever since then, I have used that phrase to name the preternatural focus and awareness I experience when I am hosting an event or a show. Fear fuels my “stage brain” and the more I gain the corresponding focus and awareness, the more the fear animates every cell in my body.
This past week, I interviewed the fascinating local architect and artist Somaya Etemad for my next episode of “The Voice of Los Feliz” podcast. She generously shared much of her rich life story with me, chapters of which could certainly be described as “harrowing”. In short, she is no stranger to fear. She has emerged from all that fear demanded of her a person fully committed to joy. Her art displays genuine whimsy. As we spoke, she shared a phrase that I have heard from other sources recently, about the importance of choosing love over fear. As with any binary choice I can think of, “fear or love” is, to me, a false choice.
I learned years back that when offered the choice between two paths, it’s always best to take the third path. And there always is one. Sometimes, though, you have to wait patiently for it to appear. In my experience, fear and love often seek to work together. A teacher of mine once said, “Where there is fear, there is desire.” Fear lets us know in no uncertain terms precisely what matters to us. Hence, my wife saying that when she no longer feels fear before going on stage it will be time to quit, because she will know that performing no longer means enough to her.
Fear and justifiable reasons for it seem to have been easy to find this year. Locally, when you start the year with the wildfires we did, it sort of sets the tone. And when you find out your spouse has cancer, well, you better clear room because fear is going to be moving in for a good long stay. One reason “fear or love”, specifically, is a false choice is that fear announces itself, it’s not really chosen. In that respect, it’s a lot like bravery.
A few weeks after my wife, Lily, began a clinical trial to treat her cancer, she received a letter from her beloved Aunt Harrington. In it she wrote:
When I was sick, people kept saying, “Oh, you are so brave” … Hah! Nice to hear and pat oneself on the back, but we really have no other choice.
I had shared a similar sentiment with Lily in the summer of 2020. My mother had died (on my birthday) in 2019, and my father had died during lockdowns in June of 2020. My sister was hospitalized having suffered several strokes and it was clear that the business of closing out my parents’ affairs and the task of caring for my sister had fallen to me. Somehow, in expressing a positive attitude about it all, my good friend and frequent colleague Marc Hershon (the announcer for “The Voice of Los Feliz” podcasts) paid me the compliment of calling me one of the “most brave” persons he knew. I confided in Lily that I simply didn’t feel I had any choice but to do what I knew it was “me” to do. Bravery didn’t enter into it. Living authentically did, and though there were moments I would have loved to “cut and run” and even considered it at times for fractions of seconds that felt like eternity, knowing I had to look myself in the mirror (never an easy task under the best of circumstances!) made the non-decision for me.
Harrington’s letter to Lily reminded me of this and in the ensuing weeks I had many discussions seeking to define the difference between bravery and courage. Put simply, bravery is unconscious. It either appears in the moment, when confronted by feelings of powerlessness, or it doesn’t. Courage is the choice to go through with something or show up for something when to do so, we know, might make us feel vulnerable to feelings of physical or emotional or mental pain. I think of improv performers. I have seen a lot of improv. I truly believe the skillset learned through studying improv is nothing less than the skills required for survival in the 21st century. I have witnessed performers, in the middle of a scene, show fear, and even seen, on a rare occasion, fear get the better of a usually reliable performer. The art of improv is the art of embracing whatever comes forward. That’s scary. To act in the face of that fear is bravery, but it took courage to show up at the theatre and go on stage in the first place. If we consciously choose to act courageously often enough in the face of that which we know might terrify us, we might just train our unconscious to respond with bravery when fear comes calling, often unexpectedly. Of course, this example is offered by someone who never has performed improv on stage and likely never will. I simply do not possess that kind of courage. So, perhaps, I ought to offer an example from my own life and behavior …
When I was California State certified as a Violence prevention Specialist, I went through a six-month training program and followed that up with years of volunteer work. We were allowed to miss one (and only one) training session, or we would have to take the entire training course again. Because of a scheduling conflict, I found that I did, indeed, need to miss one session, and according to one of the instructors, I was “fine” missing that particular session because it involved all of us trainees bringing in any questions we were afraid to get asked by any of the groups to which we might present. I did have one such question, but hearing from my instructor, whom I greatly admired, that I would be “fine” without getting coached gave me confidence. Flash forward to my first solo speaking engagement, educating a class of college students about topics pertaining to relationship violence: I finished my presentation, knowing I had nailed it. The audience wasn’t exactly rapt, but it was my first presentation on the topic and I don’t know how many professors find their classes to be rapt under any occasion. So, I opened the floor for questions, a definite spring in my step. A hand in the back of the room shot up, and …
The very first question I received was the exact question I was scared of being asked. The question was whether or not I had ever been involved in a violent relationship. There is no right answer. If I said “no”, no matter if it was the truth, I would automatically discredit myself for all those who might say, “Well, he has no first-hand experience with this, what could he possibly know about my situation?”
On the other hand, if I said, “Yes, I have been in a violent relationship” even if it was the truth, I could easily lose a whole other part of the audience. Being a credible messenger is one of the reasons it’s often important to avoid revealing personal details altogether. So, what was I supposed to say? The silence was deafening. At least to me.
When given a choice between two unacceptable options … Take the third path.
I found myself saying, if only to buy time, “I am so glad you asked that question.” Following up with a, “What a great question!” And then, “Did everyone hear that question?” I saw a few heads lift up slowly as if the bodies they were attached to had previously drifted off to some level of slumber. I walked around the room, asking individuals directly if they had heard the question. Before long, I truly had everyone’s undivided attention. I did not, however, have the answer to the question, but having everyone’s attention, moving confidently in the direction of whatever it was that wanted to come forward gave me something akin to a feeling of faith that an answer would come. “Now, that we have everyone’s attention,” I said to the student in back who had posed it, “would you please repeat the question.”
“Have YOU ever been involved in a violent relationship?” he asked with powerful intent.
I smiled warmly and benignly stated, “That’s the wrong question.”
The third path had revealed itself. When the only two choices offered as solutions are unsatisfying, maybe the third path is to ask a better question.
Indeed, I declared, “The important question is ‘Have I ever been in a healthy relationship?’” I went on to explain to the now very attentive group that our goal as a society ought to be building healthy communities and healthy relationships. The absence of violence is required for health, but it’s only the start of the hard work, not the destination. What transpired from there was a genuinely nourishing, inspiring discussion.
When I used to teach acting classes, my favorite students were often those who expressed genuine fear, and sometimes fear’s frequent companion, anger, over what I was asking them to do in class. Because no matter how much they might complain, or fight me, or swear that they would do it because they did not want to let down their scene partners, but that this would be the last time they ever took my class, they always showed themselves just how powerful they are. They displayed the courage to show up and when the fear struck, they did the only thing in good conscience they could allow themselves to do: the work. And they always came back for more classes.
I would tell my students that we don’t get to choose what we feel when we act. The feelings will announce themselves and flow through us, fear included. We can choose how we feel about what we are feeling, however, especially fear. It’s not about choosing love over fear. It’s about loving fear itself, because walking through the fire of fear shows us what we’re made of and lets us know we are in close and vulnerable proximity to that which our hearts desire. I believe everyone should take an acting class if only to experience in a safe place the dangerous work of embracing fear, and the joy of doing so. It’s a little bit like being a kid again and experiencing Halloween all year long. After all, actors put on costumes, put on wigs, put on makeup and celebrate the things that scare them!
When I was a child, I truly wished Halloween could last all year long. In fact, many months prior, you might just find my friends and I dressing up and going trick-or-treating, even during daylight. When confused homeowners would exclaim that Halloween was several calendar page turns away, we always had at the ready the fact that we were going to be “out of town” on the actual day. Of course, there are only so many times a trick-or-treater can be offered change or a piece of fruit by those unprepared for the knock on the door before the thrill of the endeavor fades. When October 31 finally rolled around, no one asked, but we were nevertheless prepared, if called out, to explain that we were able to work out our travel schedules after all.
Though it finds its origins in ancient European cultures and customs, what we think of as the modern Halloween really took off in America after World War II. I have never lost my fondness for it. I have long loved living in a city where Halloween has felt more like a “season” than just a single day as it does here in Los Angeles. And I was thrilled when I was in Malta two years ago and found that Halloween holds real appeal there for children and adults alike. Still, as I have gotten older, the magic I experienced as a child seemed not to be experienced as deeply by contemporary children in America, or certainly as widely. In fact, in the age of Instagram and Heidi Klum parties, it has become easy to think of Halloween as being more for grown ups than for children, just like comic books, Star Wars or action figures.
As an adult, Thanksgiving became my favorite holiday. Simply put, it is the week where I have always found everyone I encounter to be in the best of moods. I would often hear a sentiment expressed along the lines of “Wouldn’t it be lovely if” the Christmas spirit lasted all year long. I have long wondered what just might be possible if the spirit of expressing gratitude and thankfulness lasted all year long. Still, if what I witnessed this Halloween is any indication, there might be something to celebrating the scary and having fun with fear all year round! Lily and I went walking Halloween night, taking in neighbors’ decorations and kids’ costumes. There was a large turnout, larger than that to which we have become accustomed. And a good percentage of the homes were decorated. My father would have been pleased. He really loved decorating his and my mother’s house. Maybe knowing he would have enjoyed our outing is why I wore an official Norway Olympic team jacket that belonged to him. He was proud of his heritage, though he never stepped foot in the old country. That adventure was left to me, just like the Olympic jacket. I wore both proudly this year.
We made our way to where Council District 4 had arranged street closures on Ambrose Ave. and suddenly childhood memories of just what a big deal Halloween could be came flooding back. Truthfully, the big crowd populating the street and the sidewalks, and the high energy of all in attendance, reminded me of what every street felt like on Halloween night in the suburb where I grew up. So, no, having one stretch of closed-off streets create a thriving scene doesn’t make me believe that Halloween is all the way “back”. Still, the genuine joy embodied by the children, by their parents, by childless cat ladies like myself (that, quite possibly, should have been my costume) was palpable and heartening. After a year of fires, of militarized streets, of masked federal agents, of my wife’s cancer, I want to see joy surrounding that which is scary - The joy of helping people, the joy of celebrating community, the joy of finding out what we’re made of, what we’re capable of and what our ideals truly are.
I have been thinking a great deal of late about Casablanca and The Third Man. They are two of my five all-time favorite films, and I have re-watched them both within the past year. Casablanca (1942) was made during World War II in the Hollywood studio system, and was set in a world on the brink of that war. The Third Man is ostensibly a British film, made by a British director (Sir Carol Reed) and written by the very English Graham Greene. It is set post-war, filmed on location in the occupied and divided city of Vienna it depicts. Both films focus on American men as their protagonists, however, each man having lost something essential of himself. Rick, in Casablanca, has seemingly given up looking for that lost something. Joseph Cotten’s Holly Martins in The Third Man hopes to find what he is missing in Vienna. Rick self-identifies as a cynic. Holly likes the idea of playing the hero. Though Holly Martins is less iconic than Casablanca’s Rick (in The Third Man, it’s Orson Welles’ Harry Lime that became iconic), I have long considered them both to be truly and distinctly American heroes. It wasn’t until my recent viewings of the films that it dawned on me how cowardly both men really are.
In each film, the protagonist is rather shockingly unwilling to do the right thing for most of the story. They go along, satisfied in their efforts to prove how much more clever they are than anyone else, until their cleverness is revealed to be cowardice where a moral backbone ought to be. In short, they go along until they just can’t do so any more, and only at the last possible moment do they do the right thing. These men are marked by their reluctance, their fear, their self-pity, and in the case of Rick, a rather shocking cruelty towards the woman he truly loves. All of this they reveal time and again prior to finally revealing their willingness to do the hard, right thing. In doing so, they re-discover what they have lost: idealism. During the eve of America’s involvement in the war, Rick’s idealism proves rousing. Against the backdrop of bombed out Vienna, a city whose currency seems to be post-war cynicism, Holly’s idealism proves heartbreaking.
In both films, we see how fear can become a force multiplier. The more people become afraid of their own fear, the further away from their idealism they stray. Righteousness, indignation, grievance, greed, and gain all become temporary sources for feelings we mistake for power. Idealism pals around with vulnerability, and where there is vulnerability, there is going to be fear. After all, the things that leave us feeling vulnerable are the things we love the most dearly. Both Rick and Holly have their consciences struck to life through shocking examples of others’ vulnerability.
My takeaway after my recent viewings of these films is that these heroes resonate more than ever as decidedly contemporary Americans. We seem to be a people frequently too frightened to do the right thing until it is almost too late. We can’t look to groups, organizations, or institutions to save us from the scary things life brings our way. After all, groups, organizations and institutions are comprised of individuals who have their own fears and when those fears find echoes, confirmation or cause within the insulated collective of the group, fear becomes a force multiplier, and the group can become dangerous, the institution can fail us.
Based on my ruminations of this past year, I would say neither bravery nor courage are force multipliers, but in my experience the willingness to show and express vulnerability can stir to life other people’s consciences and latent desires to do the right thing. Age is just a number. 57 is a pretty darn big number. My goal is to make that number as big as I possibly can before I depart the stage. In many ways, I feel better physically than I ever have. My love affair with life deepens with every passing day. I want to stick around as long as I can.
Still, getting older brings with it no shortage of fear. There is the fear of physical pain, the fear of emotional loss, the fear of not being ready for death when it comes for me. I hope to be person enough to greet death like a friend, as I hope to be brave enough to greet as a friend everyone I encounter. There is always work to be done in this regard, of course, but when I manage it, it’s because I have no fear of being afraid and of sharing my vulnerability with my fellow human beings, and in so doing, perhaps, giving them permission to do the same.
So, this week, I will celebrate my birthday and give thanks for all that I am grateful, but I will also begin to celebrate Halloween and all that is scary all year round. Moreover, I will do so in costume! If you wonder how you will recognize me, I will be wearing the costume of an aging silver fox. I say it’s a costume, because the truth is, on the inside, I feel younger than I ever have.
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