I am writing this in the midst of a blackout. It happened during Stranger Things. It started with the light flickering. It is the one on a dimmer—the only one of its kind in the house. Nothing else seemed odd. Then it went out. Then everything else did. Seemed like a perfect time to settle into the Ten Minute Rule.
I have a theory about fear. The more you are willing to open your mind to the possibility of things, the more the fear you generate from horror and the like becomes a present thing inside of you. I feel like people block out fear. They watch these movies and steel themselves for the horror of it and as such do not let it get to them. The jump scares are what gets them, because they don’t always see it coming. It is more surprise than fear. True fear settles into you on the breath of ‘what if’. Once you allow yourself to believe, as though accepting the possibility of it could and removing the challenge of is it? Then you’re going to be able to be scared. Maybe really really scared.
Lately, I’ve allowed myself to be open. When the power went out I was overcome by this momentary feeling of what if? It isn’t the first time this has happened lately. A few weeks back I was in the classroom and mid-conversation the powerpoint shut off and we ended up watching my desk computer reboot. Then every other computer that was part of that classroom network rebooted. They all loaded to the same strange ghost account. I don’t know if it was a hack or if it was a system update triggered by admin or what it possibly could be. What I do know is that we were talking about AI as a God—as a trickster God. That’s when it happened.
So when the power went out while we were watching them track a Demogorgon and the flickering lights on the show matched the one in our home…. You see where I am going with this.
I believe fear is healthy and powerful—just like joy and love and many other primal emotions. We steel ourselves off from so much of that. We numb the natural chemical reactions that follow to the point where when we do experience real terror, we won’t have a clue what to do. I think we need to let these feelings in. I think we need to be in touch with the possibility of what is out there that we don’t know about. We know there is more out there we don’t understand.
And we have no clue how to be ready.