The Pain of Fear

  As Halloween approaches, many of us - both kiddies and adults alike - will make plans to have ourselves good and scared.  We might even take the route of paying our own money to have other individuals frighten us so badly we won't sleep without the blankets pulled, suffocatingly, all the way to the tiptops of our nightmare-filled heads for weeks.  Another tactic we will probably try is sitting down in front of the television with a big bowl of popcorn and a horror movie that will either disgust or terrify us enough that we leave our snacks to go stale while we run for the cover of the light switch and "stop" button on the remote. 

  Although I have put myself through more years of surviving haunted houses than I would care to admit, the most recent episode of self-induced fear from which I have suffered came in the form of that horror movie watching I just discussed.  The movie was quite good, as far as horror films go.  The plot was complex enough to surprise me, there was an appropriate amount of gore, the suspense made me want to twist myself around on my couch until I was upside down and could allow the blood to drain to my head and take away that desperate, itchy feeling of wanting everything to get itself over with, and I was left satisfied with the ending but unsettled and unable to go to sleep until I had finished my book, just to add a buffer of pleasantness for my subconscious to hopefully feed upon for constructing my dreams.  Unfortunately, my dreams still ended up tainted, upsetting, and relentlessly negative.  I couldn't understand why.  Then, I realized that my book, while absolutely amazing, powerful, and beautiful in its own right, had evoked deep fear from me. 

  Written by one of my favorite contemporary authors, Bernardine Evaristo, Blonde Roots could be considered just as eye-opening as Uncle Tom's Cabin, except with the ability to allow those readers of European descent to finally not only sympathize with African slaves but actually relate with them and feel the horrors they experienced in an uncomfortable close-to-home proximity.  Evaristo did this by creating a work of fiction (yet horrifyingly nonfiction at the same time) in which white Europeans are the slaves of black Africans.  Because Evaristo maintains the cultural characteristics and historical themes of both groups, instead of just substituting names, she makes her readers experience understanding on an entirely new level.  To return to the idea of fear, closing the back cover of this book left me frightened to my core.  I was forced to entertain feelings of loss, torture, and hopelessness.  I mulled over in my mind what it would be like for me to lose absolutely everything and everyone and still continue to breathe.  That was fear, and it was painful.

  Lying in bed this morning, feeling not the least bit rested, I realized that the "surface" fear that comes from watching horror movies or screaming in the face of some masked and fake blood covered actor in a haunted house does, indeed, cause pain, just like the "complex" fear derived from witnessing the cruelty of humankind causes pain.  I then thought about why we voluntarily expose ourselves to such fear, when humans, typically, wish to avoid pain.  I believe that, like doomed moths to their light bulb electrocutions, we, as mortal creatures, are drawn to proof of our own mortality.  Experiencing fear makes us taste mortality, since, as immortals, we would not be forced to face fear. 

  Finally sniffing imaginary coffee and trudging downstairs to not unwillingly sacrifice myself at the alter of a probable caffeine addiction, I pondered further on my experience of watching people choose to scare themselves with the "surface" fear of fantasy much more readily than with the "complex" fear of reality.  Why would this be?  Perhaps it is easier to recover from the pain of an occasional nightmare brought on by one-too-many encounters with the chainsaw-carrying, flannel-wearing, Jason-mask-toting neighbor who likes to volunteer for the fire department's annual charity haunted house than to deal with the pain of placing your head on your pillow to the fearful realization that human beings are actually capable of uncontrollable hatred, torture, and cutting short the life of another.  Facing the pain of this complex fear makes us not only aware of our own mortality but of the fact that our mortalities are deeply connected.  We must endure the pain of fear to remind ourselves that we fear because we possess things worth fearing for. 

  I think I have a new respect for fear now, strange as it sounds to my own ears.  Don't assume, dear readers, that I'll be running off happily to join in every Halloween haunting around the corner.  I'm much-too-much of a scaredy cat to do that.  I just feel that fear has the potential to teach us what we need to appreciate, what love is about, and what we are willing to suffer for to protect.  Maybe fear is the key to being brave mortals, to being human.