Fear Effect
I like to dry my clothes on the line. I like to be outside. I am often awake well into night. These factors mean that I tend to spend a lot of time either putting up clothes or taking them down from the line at night.
I live is on the edge of where the suburbs meets rural area. My house is in a river valley literally filled with a forest of trees. Neighbors are between a hundred to a couple hundred feet apart. The crime rate of my zip code is something like one-tenth of one percent of the national average, according to the FBI. It's safe to say that it's very safe here.
But being out there not fifteen feet from my back door...sometimes it scares the hell out of me.
Just a few minutes ago, quarter to one in the morning, I was taking my shirts down, and I swear to god I saw something moving in the trees. Now usually, I'd just dismiss it because where I live it is *utterly* quiet. Silent, almost. Unless a NINJA is coming to kill me, I would *hear* something coming WAY before I saw it.
Course this time, the mysterious movement was matched with a simultaneous CRUNCH in the underbrush and rustle of leaves.
At this point, I freeze, midway through folding a shirt, and just STARE out into the darkness. For the next few seconds...
My brain is saying "WTF dude. If its anything - A RETARDEDLY HUGE IF, BY THE WAY - it's just a squirrel or a fox or some other kind of animal that's almost certainly more terrified of you than you are of it. Most likely it really is just the wind. Stop being an idiot."
Meanwhile, my heart is saying "WTF dude WTF was that - it was silver like a wolf but it slid through the trees like an eel and jesus what if it's some crazy drunk person from down by the river and theyre just trying to draw my attention from someone else coming up behind me but if I turn to look maybe that's the distraction okay there's nothing behind me a drunk person probably isnt thinking that tactically but holy crap now wheres the thing I swear I saw in front of me WTF WTF Stop standing there like an idiot and run inside!"
I'm laughing really hard as I type this because it was seriously pathetic. I *forced* myself to just stand there for a few minutes just to prove to myself how utterly, stupidly paranoid I was being. Then I finished folding my shirts and went inside. The entire time I was forcing myself to stand there, a tiny voice in the back of my head was shouting "you're just making yourself complacent! this time it wasn't real, but what about next time?! you'll just dismiss it and then you'll get stuck!"
I find fear such a fascinating experience because it's so irrational. Facts aren't really relevant. What you know isn't really a factor. What you *don't* know is the factor. What's unknown and mysterious is relevant - because it could be anything! ...and somehow that makes it everything. Even though it probably isn't anything at all.
Oh well. My shirts are dried and folded, hooray.
I live is on the edge of where the suburbs meets rural area. My house is in a river valley literally filled with a forest of trees. Neighbors are between a hundred to a couple hundred feet apart. The crime rate of my zip code is something like one-tenth of one percent of the national average, according to the FBI. It's safe to say that it's very safe here.
But being out there not fifteen feet from my back door...sometimes it scares the hell out of me.
Just a few minutes ago, quarter to one in the morning, I was taking my shirts down, and I swear to god I saw something moving in the trees. Now usually, I'd just dismiss it because where I live it is *utterly* quiet. Silent, almost. Unless a NINJA is coming to kill me, I would *hear* something coming WAY before I saw it.
Course this time, the mysterious movement was matched with a simultaneous CRUNCH in the underbrush and rustle of leaves.
At this point, I freeze, midway through folding a shirt, and just STARE out into the darkness. For the next few seconds...
My brain is saying "WTF dude. If its anything - A RETARDEDLY HUGE IF, BY THE WAY - it's just a squirrel or a fox or some other kind of animal that's almost certainly more terrified of you than you are of it. Most likely it really is just the wind. Stop being an idiot."
Meanwhile, my heart is saying "WTF dude WTF was that - it was silver like a wolf but it slid through the trees like an eel and jesus what if it's some crazy drunk person from down by the river and theyre just trying to draw my attention from someone else coming up behind me but if I turn to look maybe that's the distraction okay there's nothing behind me a drunk person probably isnt thinking that tactically but holy crap now wheres the thing I swear I saw in front of me WTF WTF Stop standing there like an idiot and run inside!"
I'm laughing really hard as I type this because it was seriously pathetic. I *forced* myself to just stand there for a few minutes just to prove to myself how utterly, stupidly paranoid I was being. Then I finished folding my shirts and went inside. The entire time I was forcing myself to stand there, a tiny voice in the back of my head was shouting "you're just making yourself complacent! this time it wasn't real, but what about next time?! you'll just dismiss it and then you'll get stuck!"
I find fear such a fascinating experience because it's so irrational. Facts aren't really relevant. What you know isn't really a factor. What you *don't* know is the factor. What's unknown and mysterious is relevant - because it could be anything! ...and somehow that makes it everything. Even though it probably isn't anything at all.
Oh well. My shirts are dried and folded, hooray.