Monday 12 November 2001

Pic of the day: Curing zombie-phobia ... "Ask yourself: What is the worst that could happen?" "The zombie might kill me and EAT MY BRAIN!" "No. Actually, the worst that could happen is that Daggerfall could crash while saving your game, corrupting your savegame just as you had found that orcish gauntlet that only shows up once every 10 000 hours of playing. Because it's JUST A GAME stupid!" "Spoilsport."

Hypophobia

Today I got my hands on the latest issue of Illustrert Vitenskap, the only surviving Norwegian magazine of popular science. (Actually it is published in parallel in several Nordic countries, but all articles are in Norwegian.) There is an interesting articles about new ways to cure phobias, with computer assisted behavioral therapy. The article also uses the opportunity to make a literary drive-by shooting at classical psychotherapy, which is left bleeding and stripped of all honor by the wayside. You be the judge of whether that is deserved. But anyway, the article made me think. Again. Oh, and this was minutes after I had heard on the radio about the latest plane crash in Queens in New York.

***

I've always had phobias, I think, but they have grown more distributed over time. These days, I don't have any really incapacitating phobias, except perhaps my fear of heights. I am particularly afraid of standing in ladders and similarly flimsy constructions. Mountainsides are better, though I don't feel too happy about them either. This seems to reflect a general pattern: I am afraid of things that are a legitimate cause of concern, I am just more afraid than is warranted by the situation. For instance, I am slightly nervous about flying, but I am quite a bit more fearful about traveling by car. This reflects the fact that car accidents are a lot more common, both in absolute terms and especially compared to the distance traveled. Even so, most people don't think twice about traveling by car. This is what I call "hypophobia", or not enough fear.

I'm afraid of snakes. (The Norwegian fauna actually has a poisonous adder, and they used to hang out on the farm where I grew up. I did not think much about them, and still don't, but I don't want anything to do with them. I don't have the visceral fear of all long sinuous things, though. Eels and freaking huge earthworms are horribly disgusting but not fearsome.) I'm afraid of big spiders, but I don't mind sharing my house with the small ones. I don't want to touch them, but they are allowed to live pretty much anywhere in my home. The big imported spiders however fill me with nameless terror. Boy can those critters move fast when they feel like it. Luckily they are very rare.

I am afraid of big animals. Elephants, big horses, bulls, and overly tall and beefy guys. I don't run away screaming, but I keep a few steps distance at any time, just in case their small brains should suddenly jump to the great idea of trampling me. Never mind that I know they are tamed. I just don't trust any creature that I don't stand a decent chance of hurting.

I don't like elevators, but I don't panic when I need to use one. I just prefer the stairs whenever possible. Actually that may be as much a habit as a phobia. I need the exercise I get from taking the stairs. But after years of not using the elevator, I feel a bit timid when I use one.

I'm afraid of the dark, but not so much as I used to be. Over time, I have realized that the darkness I truly feared was not the darkness without but the darkness within. I still am not comfortable with the dark, but it does not usually cause a panic.

When I was young, I was afraid of mirrors, windows, and mentally retarded people. (Yes, there is a connection there.) I feel a lot better now. I still feel it a bit creepy when I pass a mirror in near darkness, when I cannot readily recognize the features in the mirror. A feeling that there is someone else there, someone who should not be there. And I still feel awkward around the mentally challenged, but it's not like I decide to take a later bus because there is one at the bus stop. I have gradually come to realize that what I feared was the Inner Dummy. I was afraid that I would be an idiot and be locked away like my uncle and become a non-person.

Interestingly, I am not afraid of people or even of crowds, even though I am a rather solitary person by nature. I don't like crowds, but mostly because humans are boring in aggregate. I prefer to be with one or two people, or alternatively zero. I am afraid of drunks, though, if they are big enough. See above under "big animals" and "retards". Combine these and you have the typical Norwegian party animal.

***

But what struck me today were the phobias I don't have which I ought to have. For instance, I should have a fear of eating fat. Fat food kills way more people than snakes, plane crashes and rampaging bulls, by an order of magnitude or two or three. While my weight has gone down a bit from its absolute maximum, I could still reap years of life from avoiding fat like the plague. (I am male. We don't have good fat, only bad fat.) On the same note, I should have a morbid fear of inactivity. Each day I should feel the need to get up and stretch and jump and run for at least half an hour. But for some reason, the fear of the reclining chair has never gripped my heart with its icy hand ...

I should be afraid of not getting enough sleep. When the clock approached midnight, I ought to flee in terror and hide in my bed and close my eyes. OK, that might not exactly work. But within a few hours from the average, an hour of sleep is an hour of life. Or so I have read. (In Scientific American, if I remember correctly.) Certainly I know from experience that skimping on sleep opens my body to various infections that I otherwise resist easily, such as oral herpes and bleeding gums. But I don't feel threatened by it. Certainly not enough to take action.

I should be afraid of not getting enough fruit and vegetables. I should be afraid of getting too much flour, sugar and milk. Fruit and vegetables, and especially leafy foods, are known to protect against cancer – a leading cause of death in most civilized countries – as well as heart diseases. But these very real health risks seem much less fearsome to me than a large spider. Now that is seriously messed up.

Oh well. At least I am absolutely terrified by the prospect of casual sex, or indeed sex with anyone I don't know and trust deeply. That's kind of nifty and may have saved my life in these virulent times. But of course the motivation is not exactly health concern. Not that it matters. Panic is rarely the result of careful consideration, but it is still a powerful force in shaping human behavior.