Facts' Fears Three

Greetings, traveler, on this, the first of August. All hail August, Monthiest Month of the Year, as voted on by readers of Year Magazine. Congrats, August, on winning the honor!

Well, I've made it through one (partial) month of blogging. Here's to month number two.

Remember when I said I was afraid of everything and nothing? I said I'd explain in a later post. Well, I'm actually not sure what I meant. I guess it had something to do with my knowledge that every morning I get up, every person I meet, every action I take presents a window for danger, for pain, humiliation, or death. I know this too well, and it scares me. Sometimes, though, I can forget it and enjoy myself. Sometimes, I can push it back in my mind, not all the way, but at least halfway, and it sticks in the thick of that forest of twisty grey matter. I try not to be paranoid, but I can't help it sometimes. My life is good. I shouldn't expect danger everywhere, but because of stories I've heard and unpleasant memories I have, I do.

I'm even scared of this blog, in a way. I'm scared of getting too personal in my writing, of caring too much, of being attacked for my beliefs, of being stalked. I hope to do a longer post on this.

Anyway, I'll now give more concrete examples of fears. I'm afraid of frying bacon, a.k.a. Hot Oil Splatters of Death. That's all bacon is essentially. I'm afraid of parasites or other types of nasty creatures that get INSIDE you and cause damage. I saw a video of a parasite thing that could take over grasshopper bodies and cause the poor grasshoppers to go insane. I'm deathly afraid of haters/mean people (very scary, and they're all over the place too). Who ISN'T scared of them? They probably scare themselves.

Fears in Fact...TWO!

Violence scares me. It seems not to scare most people. At least, not when they're watching movies, TV, or other media, all of which we will call "movies" in this post for the sake of succinctness.

I have seen little violence outside of movies, and I have seen few people seeing violence outside of movies. When it occurs in movies, though, people don't seem that scared. It's weird, especially since they seem to fear perfectly unscary movie elements: bugs, ghosts, paintings, ugly creatures that are no more dangerous than anything else, or creepy MUSIC, for crying out loud. The music often leads up to more unscary stuff, and it can make the moment seem intense but that's all. If it does lead up to something scary, like violence, people seem less scared of the actual violence than the build up to it. Evidently people are most scared of tension and suspense. However, when characters get torn limb from limb, the viewers don’t blink. Geez. They should be scared of violence. I decree it. From this day forth, people shall fear violence first and foremost, ending all war, pain, and...well, violence, instead of wasting their efforts killing innocent spiders. It just seems people are scared of all the wrong things.

For example, somewhere on the internet, someone said the animated movie 9 contains situations that would scare uncringing fans of Jurassic Park. 9 isn't that scary though. It shows dead bodies and soul-sucking machines but very little gore, guts, and violence. Well, it has violence, but it surrounds sack dolls, who don't bleed, and machines, who don't feel pain. (I’m more ok with violence when non-humans are fighting, dying, etc.) I can’t imagine how sack dolls could feel pain either. They apparently do in some scenes, and apparently don’t in others. 9 passed out because he tore stitching in his shoulder, but 7 hardly made a noise when she was shot through the leg. It could be she’s exceptionally stoic, but I prefer to think the dolls can’t feel pain, and they pass out because…I have no idea.

Anyway, Jurassic Park is much scarier than 9, because it’s much more violent. It has blood and people getting ripped apart and banged up and so on and so forth. Jurassic Park isn’t even that bad, compared to other movies, but it's still scary, and the point is that people are scared of the wrong things.

Coraline stands as another example. Even while adoring Jurassic Park, Iron Man, and The Dark Knight, some people hate Coraline because it's “so freaking scary." Coraline is not nearly as bad as those other movies. Even if it is a bit scary, Coraline has almost no violence. The most violent part was the reference to sewing buttons into eyes. I admit that's pretty terrifying. But at least it never showed this. The second most violent part was the cat clawing out the Other Mother’s button eyes. I’m not even sure she can feel pain. Certainly not enough to stop her from chasing Coraline. The movie showed no blood or beating of humans. What makes it so scary? The ghosts? They're tragic, not scary. The beetle candies? They're gross, but not exactly petrifying. The candy blob of Ms. Spink and Forcible? Alright, that's freaky. But still not as scary as Iron Man, and even Iron Man isn't bad.

I can tolerate mild violence in movies if the story is really compelling, but after a certain point, it’s not worth it. I got through the latest Skulduggery book without skipping the description of Tanith nailed to a chair. (I totally WOULD have skipped it if I’d known it was coming, but it first appeared Tanith was just sitting there, and then the book just popped out with the explanation.) I read through that one because the Skulduggery books are amazing. Actually, though, I almost didn’t get through the first book because of such violence. It was just barely compelling enough, but the books got a lot better after that, so it wasn’t as hard to finish book 4.

Some other fears of mine are: Rotating doors (how do you use those things without DYING???), and…

Well, I’m sure there’s more, which is why I’m going to continue this later.

As a final note, I don't mean to be insensitive to anyone's fears. I actually understand some of the fears I called "silly" more than it might have appeared. I was only determined to speak strongly about this because I'm annoyed at the lack of, well, everyone thinking the same as me. I am always right after all. The world would do well to agree with me.

Facts and Fears

Inspired by Derek Landy's blog post on what scares him, I've decided to write about what scares me (mostly because I already know what to say after reading Derek's post).

I'm scared of people in vehicles. When a car passes me, my brain goes, "kidnapper. Kidnapper. KIDNAPPER. KIDNAPPERRRRR!!! Oh, good, they passed." Maybe it's the fact that most kidnapping stories I've heard involve cars. When my friends and I travel sidewalks of busier roads, my brain takes some comfort in its subconscious understanding that no one will kidnap us there because of all the other kidnappers around. Each one is afraid they'll try to kidnap us at the same time as someone else, and they don't want to start a kidnapper war.

Now, now. No need to defend your vehicle-driving self, friends, or family. I know I'm being super paranoid and very few vehicle drivers actually are kidnappers. Some of my best friends and favorite family members drive vehicles, but if I see you or anyone else in a car, my brain will immediately translate that as "kidnapper." You can never be too careful. Or so thinks my brain. Sometimes, I don't even recognize my family until they get out of the car. I'm too frantic deciding the best course of action: run, hide, or see if it's someone I know. During this period of contemplation, I freeze up. I know it MIGHT be someone I know, but what if it's not? Should I take the chance? I know they PROBABLY don't mean me harm, but what if they do? Should I take the chance? If I run or hide, there's a huge chance I'll humiliate myself by running from someone NORMAL or from my family, the latter of which would probably be suspicious I'm doing something I shouldn't (eating candy my mom hid for Easter), as they don't know of my vehicle-drivers phobia. I'd hate to be kidnapped, but I'd also hate to humiliate myself. In the end, I humiliate myself anyway by freezing up with a "deer in the headlights" expression on my face.

I don't like the idea of getting kidnapped and killed. I'm not scared to die. That would be like being scared of Jesus or paradise. In the immortal words of Linguini, "She believed in heaven, so she's set. Afterlife-wise." But BEING KILLED...I'm sure I wouldn't enjoy it.

I also fear the bunny that haunteth the patterns of clothing, accessories, and posters. Its face looketh sweet, but its words readeth mean. It's perverted to put a cute, smiling white rabbit next to a nasty little caption. Which is another thing that scares me: pervertedness. Which is also why I fear some objects like ventriloquist dolls, dolls, puppets, and other innocent-looking things that people use to make mean, perverted jokes. That is to say, I have nothing against the objects themselves but I fear someone MIGHT use them for perverted reasons. Of course, I also fear pervertedness without the "cute" mediums. Some people, I swear, they're worse than the bunny!

I guess I'm scared of zombies, but only because I know they'd get me dirty. Look at them! They're positively unhygienic! (But I am Legend and Resident Evil and Alien Vs. Predator didn't scare me much, and Zombieland was actually entertaining.)

There's lots of other things. Generally, I'm scared of everything and nothing. It's hard to explain, so I won't. At least, not this post. I will in another post, I promise.