Boo.

Fear.

Snakes, Tigers, Bears.

Tornados, Earthquakes, Tsunamis.

Betrayal, Heartbreak, Abandonment.

Failure, Embarrassment, Guilt.

Success, Hope, Love.

Whether it’s animals, Mother Nature, other people, ourselves, or even the good parts of life, there has to be something that causes the feeling of dread to occur inside everyone one of us. That is, everyone except for Babies.

Babies don’t feel fear until 8-12 months. The obvious explanation is that there’s nothing they’ve learned to be afraid of. Sure they might still experience pain, but because they haven’t grasped causality yet it’s just a thing that happened. All that exists is a type of curiosity that then leads to fear once they’re old enough to understand that cause and effect is an unfortunate part of life.

I personally believe that means we’re only afraid of the things we think we should be afraid of. I’m afraid of heights. Lisa is too. Now the difference between mine and Lisa’s “fear of heights” is that Lisa has actually fallen off a balcony. I know right, scary. She fell off a balcony when she was a child and now Lisa has a fear of falling… from heights. I’ve never fallen off anything. But I still avoid climbing ladders. I’ll do it, but I’ll be reluctant. Lisa will not, under any circumstances, do it. We have the same fear, but it’s manifested itself differently in our lives. She’s experienced first hand what pain, anxiety, hopelessness, comes with falling from a high place, and, understandably, it’s something she’ll never do again. What about the people who are scared of lions, wildfires? Again, there’s the two types who’ll have that fear manifest in different ways. We’ll call the Lisa’s Type 1s and the rest, Type 2s. The typing system works for most conventional fears, except for the fear of (relatively) positive things.

For example the fear of Happiness - cherophobia. That comes about from being afraid of feeling happy for a variety of reasons. Maybe you don’t want to feel happy because there’s other people suffering, so what gives you the right? Or maybe you don’t want to feel that way because then something bad will happen, I mean it must, right? Good times never last forever. For the fear of positive things, there can only be type 1s. No one is inherently scared of positive emotions, it goes against all logic of being a human. We want to experience the good. When those experiences cause bad things to happen however, people exist on one of two sides.

A. They’re reluctant to try again but know that the good, however unlikely it maybe be, has the chance to severely outweigh the bad.

B. It’s never worth it and going through Love just to end up with your heart broken is inevitable and not worth it. For the B’s of the world - I’d like to say you’re wrong.

Going through life abstaining from its best parts is not living. It’s surviving, and we’re here to do more than that. It’s always worth feeling successful even if it may mean failure. So we’ll call the fear of positive emotions, Type A.

What am I the most scared of?

Type 2 -

bears. They’re way too fast and way too destructive when they want to be.

Type 1 -

• Loneliness. Not to be confused with being alone or solitude. The fear comes from the lack of a choice. The feeling of having no one to share your life with when you want to is genuinely is not something I want to experience again. I’ve been there, I’ve felt an emptiness that exists outside my body and it’s why I strive to have people that I know want to be there for me, and it’s why I want to be there for people, because no one should have to experience that, and they’re not going to if I can help it. Ever since I came out of that place and knew what it was like to have others wanting to be in your life I knew it was something I’m not going to experience again. I‘m not sure whether or not this counts as having overcome that fear but I’m genuinely not afraid that it will happen to me, however I am afraid that it can happen to anyone. Extensions of that fear are not being accepted, and dying alone. Duh.

Type A -

Love (Maybe heartbreak is a better word. But heartbreak only exists with love so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) - While that is something that hurts more than any physical pain will, death is not its end result, and a new life is the upside. Falling in love and risking heartbreak is more than worth the risk to get the chance to feel the sun from both sides for the rest of my life.