All These Fears

"How long will it take
Before these feelings go away
How much longer do I wait
And are there any real answers anyway
Your silence in a crowded room
Louder than the loudest tune
I hang on every word

And you say rise above
Open your eyes up
And you say rise above
Yourself"
 - "Rise Above", by Bono and The Edge


I wasn't a fan of the 'Divergent" book series. However, I was intrigued by the thoughts on fear; how the book states that everyone has their own number of fears. In the stories, the characters who are Dauntless - the bravest, strongest, and often simply reckless - must each go through a personalized Fear Landscape. It's all virtual, an injection which basically causes a very real-seeming hallucination while the person lies in a chair, fighting fears in their mind. The point is to test and ready them, see how they will respond so that they can learn to master their fears. One character is nicknamed Four because he only has four fears to face, an incredible rarity. Intrigued by this, I began to write down my own fears, searching my mind for what made me cold to the bone to imagine, what made me secretly panic. So far, I have a list of ten things.

It fascinates me, the things people are afraid of and not. I've never been afraid of heights, within reason, or drowning, since I can swim well. But I'm terrified of electric shock, any kind, which is a fear some people might laugh at. When I was a little girl I read several stories, mostly in Reader's Digest, about people who were struck by lightning. Even though the people in these stories lived, the descriptions of charred shoes, blasted from the black-soled feet of someone lying prone and twitching, stayed with me. I hated being out in thunderstorms or being near any type of live current. Even as an adult, I hate driving when there is lightning. As unlikely as it may be for my car to be struck, just being in a metal object while electricity cracks through the air, finds me praying relentlessly for safety. Any film where a character experiences electric shock - the paralyzed helplessness and pain - still leaves me chilled. As a child, I would find excuses to leave the room when my family watched the cartoon "Ben And Me", a movie about a mouse who helps Benjamin Franklin with his experiments, culminating in Ben sending the mouse up with that fabled kite, where he is repeatedly struck by lightning. Laugh if you like: even today, I would chose not to watch.

That's the thing about fear that I find so interesting: it's different for everyone. It's such a mix of both our personalities and our experiences, I think. Some people might rather get a I-don't-know-how-big watt electric shock rather than go skydiving or bungee jumping. I'd take the latter any day of the week, and run yelling from the former. But would I be so afraid if I hadn't read those stories as a child? Experience. Would I be fascinated with heights if I didn't have the longing to get as close to flying as possible? Personality.
On my list of fears I included 'being mauled by dogs'. The grandmother of a friend of mine died that way, just walking down a neighborhood street when a pack which had formed saw and attacked her. Would that be on my list if I didn't know someone who had died that way, and also if I hadn't been chased a couple of times by an angry dog myself? Probably not. Then again, there are plenty of things on my list which are purely from a fearful part of my imagination, such as someone I love committing suicide, or coming home and having a stranger waiting in my house.

Everyone's fears are different. I find that it interests me to talk about them, or even just write them down. There in black and white, or as words shared with another person, there's a feeling of control. "I have named you," I think. "You are my fears, and this I comprehend and face." As though I'm creating my own Fear Landscape, I walk through them in my mind. I face and experience them, praying to be strong enough. Praying to be stronger. To be brave.