A meeting of fears

I’M sure the final number will be a multiple of this number, but at this minute I’m aware of 619 kinds of fear.

I’M sure the final number will be a multiple of this number, but at this minute I’m aware of 619 kinds of fear. From theophobia (fear of God) to satanophobia (of Satan), it seems for every thing and thought that exists, there’s a fear someone harbours. Often one man’s phobia is another man’s mania — caligynephobia (of beautiful women) or chrematophobia (of money), for instance. Show me a man who’s completely fearless and I’ll show you the face of God.

The beginnings of fear often lie in experience. Here the main environmental hazard are two entities who shape human minds more aggressively and overwhelmingly than any other person, idea, thing — parents and teachers. But equally, they could be a part of a spiritual inheritance, gathered over lifetimes. We live with fears, we cover them up when we can, we fight them and conquer them in times of supreme adversity. Fear is part of our being and simultaneously feeds on, and feeds, our bodies and minds — almost an addiction.

Remember how your very cells trembled when the chemistry teacher called you from the safe confines of the last bench to the front of the lab? All he had to do was to change his tone. Perhaps a whack or two embedded the fear in the mind permanently. The mind took it from there and reasoned, whatever else you do, don’t mess with this man — cram the equations if you have to, get your thorium-uranium right. Or else, live with chemophobia.

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To the thinking, questioning mind, hadephobia (of hell) is as illogical as ouranophobia (of heaven). But psychiatrists and psychologists have failed to allay these fears with as much success as spiritualists and soothsayers. How can fear go away when its source lies somewhere among psycho-spiritual recesses, which only the psychic, that tiny flake of the omniscient within us, can probe? As long as we continue to seek crusty body-mind solutions to the problem, it will remain unsolved. The best solution is perhaps to face it, see it for what it is, tell it to go away. Else, simply ignore it. For by stoking the fire of fear within us, mulling over it, we only serve to strengthen it.

And as I finish this piece, here’s my addition to the fear list: columnophobia (a mortal fear of readers not enjoying my column). Want to share yours?