FeAR Of VAstNESs
As I stood next to this behemoth my irrational childhood fears began to bubble to the surface and I suddenly felt uncomfortable and on edge. For whatever reason, the thought of extremely deep water and massively large objects frighten the shit out of me. Looking back, it all probably started with swimming lessons and the classic childhood fear that a gigantic shark would appear in the deep end and gobble me up. While the shark never did manifest itself, the subconscious fear of those deep foreboding waters has followed me straight into adulthood.
I suppose it was all just a fear of vastness, the fear of being so minute and tiny in the face of colossal objects or spaces has consistenly filled me with a sense of terror. Or maybe it's simply the fear of an infinite abyss; the notion of standing before something so vast and limitless and being completely vulnerable before it petrifies me - it as if there is nothing you can you do escape it or hide from it. Even as a teenager, I can remember going into an empty farm silo and being utterly terrified of the open space that lie within it - it was as if a dark subconscious nightmare had been brought to life and manifested in the world. I stood in that silo for about ten seconds before taking off for the door, trying to act cool as possible while I hastily walked away never to look back at it.
Kind of crazy. Even as an 'adult', I find the below image disturbingly unsettling:
I can't look at it without feeling uncomfortable.
