Fears

Have you ever been truly afraid of something? Most people have. Such a fear as simply as being afraid of the dark to fearing death itself. Something that at a mention of having to face alone can make you shudder. But it’s the reason people find fears that is truly interesting. Most people fear what they cannot understand because, their mind must come up with it’s own reason for an illogical event, you don’t know quite what you’re dealing with, and it surprises you.

People fear what they cannot understand because their mind has no true explanation so it must come up with it’s own. When something happens that no one can explain, human nature is to come up with a reason, just like it’s human nature to flinch when something is coming at your face. It’s just something that you don’t really think about doing, but when most people can’t stand when they don’t know something, so they need answers. Like with superstitions and such, someone’s imagination took flight and they began to fear something. Years later, if something still hasn’t been explained, the fear may still live on. Maybe not as strong, but it may still reside in the back of people’s minds, making then glance over their shoulders every once in a while and stay on their guard. For example, after the 9/11 attacks, security got really tight. Still today, almost four years later, people are still afraid of a terrorist attack, because we don’t understand what truly went down or why. People’s fears come from their own minds and thoughts.

People will also fear something the surprises them. A loud sound or sudden movement can cause a jolt of fear. That is, it scares you until the source of the sound or movement it explained. Most people, unless truly composed, will jump if something scrapes against the floor in the middle of the night of something drops, because, until you know what it is, it could be anything. Fear caused by surprise doesn’t typically last as long as other fears, but it still a fear caused by the unexplained and misunderstood.

Fear can also be caused by when you don’t actually know what it is that scares you. This may seem like a fear caused by surprise, and in some instances, it very well could be, but a lot of the time it is not. Fears caused by surprise can be easily explained. Fear by the unknown can take a little more effort to unveil. For example, in olden days, people feared a wolf’s howl. They knew what made the howl, but what could it mean? To them it could mean anything from, a war cry, to speaking to the dead. They didn’t know it was simply a form of communication, so they feared it. Now, even when this is explained, some more naïve people will fear a wolf’s cry because of stories they heard throughout their lives. This fear applies more to the younger generation, because they don’t know as much about the world and they’re still influenced by what they hear around them.

If everything in the world was perfectly understood, there would be no need for fears. There would be no questions to be answered. Young children wouldn’t feel the need to have a parent check under their bed for monsters and what not. But since there are many, many unanswered questions in the world, and thankfully will be for years, many fears will live on for years to come. With out our fears, the world could turn into an extremely boring place.