Wade Into The Deep End

I thought, since Halloween has just passed and all, that i should write a blog about fear and danger.

I suppose that fear is tied in with imagination. Most of what we fear, is an imagined entity, and most of the time, we have no true reason to fear it.

What exactly CAUSES fear? i mean, in this day and age, there isnt much left for us to be scared of, other than the lengths of human psychosis. And of course, psychotic individuals are something to be feared, but dont we have securiy to help us against it? It sort of goes back to imagination.. what we are capable of imagining.. Can it become a reality?

For instance. This new subgenre of horror movies that seems to have come into its own recently. Things such as Hostel or Saw are movies based entirely on the evils one mortal person can commit, and they are truly horrifying, and they dont leave your mind alone even for a second. Even in the absence of a killer or a cut, these scenes are set in dark, dingy places full of germs that we know instinctively we should avoid, and yet we cant. But what is more horrifying, other than the fact that these things are possible, is that its possible for a human being, like-minded enough to be the same species, to break our views of normality and do what you could never bring yourself to. Is that scary because it means that one day, we could snap and do something similar? are we far away enough from the claws of media, and rage, and insanity, to never turn into that which we fear?

And then of course, there is the urban legends we are raised with. Ghosts, ghouls, zombies, vampires, werewolves, and all the things you'd rather not run into. These things are entities that we ourselves have created in our imaginations. So why do we fear them? why do children dare each other to say "bloody mary" into mirrors, and then spend their entire night avoiding anything reflective? Even sceptics, who scoff in your face when you quiver about your fear of the shadows, look over their shoulders now and then. But for what? Why do we all have this sense that something incredibly hostile and evil is just out of our peripheral vision and if we move but an inch, we'll be staring down the gullet of a monster sent from hell to devour us? is it a fear of the unknown? what we cant see? is that why many of us fear the dark? the possibility that one day our eyes may fail us, fatally?