Blog of Awesome: Fear of the Dark

Don't fear, Michael..

Fear is a controlling force and for most makes people act unusually..

If I might quote from "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy",

Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let's say you're and astronaut on the Moon and you fear that your partner has been turned into Count Dracula. The next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham!, you just slam the door behind him and blast-off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, "Think again, bat man."

What's interesting here is that the fellow astronaut (or cosmonaut, no, wait, sorry! Russia has never made it to the Moon; never sent a cosmo-fail there. My bad! Guess they're not up to 1969 technology yet! Ha-ha! RuSpace, do you even Moon?) Where was I? Oh yeah. So the main character is afraid that his fellow astronaut has become Count Dracula. This is a valid concern, and it probably has happened a lot, though undocumented. Just look at Buzz Aldrin! I mean, seriously! Sheesh! Jesus, people!

So anyway, the astronaut leaves a space-suited vampire on the Moon, which is pretty cool if you think about it, though the next explorers will have to contend with a lunar-vampire who will likely be quite cross (oops, pun). How astronauts are turned into Count Dracula is uncertain, but that's the key here. No one knows. Fear is not really a thing, it's in our minds.

Thirsty, Casey?

We can be stressed-out over various things, like going to the dentist. Unless you're a clean-tooth fetishist (such as most dental hygienists) you're probably going to have a bit of plaque of some kind, or perhaps a filling is needed. We fuss over the potential likelihood for pain for the scraping and some of the X-Rays, "Hey, is that 16 or 17 you just took?" (Note* The actual amount per X-Ray at a dentist is about 0.02 mSv and you really don't have to worry about anything under 20 mSv at an extended amount of time (like a few hours) vs. 0.02.

One of America's last Rated-X films, Robocop. "Help me!" "Get away from me man!" "Help.. me...!"

The slogan tune, "Duck and Cover" is a delight to save countless children
from radioactive doom! "Is this how we die, daddy?"

A half-second at 0.02 mSv is non-dangerous as background radiation varies at about that level anyway, and as all space kids know, it's the exposure time more-so than the level.) The bleeding, the Bill Cosby concern of "Smoke-buh.. I-buh smell-buh SMOKE-buh!" (or if you're a Buh-buh Kinsella, a lippy grade-school fellow-student from 1979). We fear the potential for pain and suffering and we work ourselves up about it. Sometimes we're right, sometimes not, but we actually add suffering to ourselves by worrying and fearing about it.

Someone's gonna have a case of the "hotpants"!

People have sleepless nights. I've had a few. Sometimes it's rational, like worrying that if you fail at your job, countless lives will be lost because of you. In my line of work, an indirect cause-and-effect can be seen, and sometimes you've passed that ball over and someone else dropped it and you're powerless to watch the aftermath. This kind of thing is frustrating and adds tension and drama.

Me-owww! Kitty kitty!

Some worry about why Miss Kitka is not eating her new kitty-food you got her and if she's going to be alright, until you realize that Julie Newmar is not a kitty-cat but a real person and you should probably untie her before the police arrive.

Miss Kitka is ready for you, Mister Wayne.

Some worry about burglars (ham or otherwise, and yes, the Hamburglar is real and there's no way to stop him because he's immune to lasers and nukes and acid splash through Bangladeshian vitriolage as the Hamburglar has fought the Acid Creature and is the only living being that has won against it [documented in Project Bluebook and MK-Ultra]). Sometimes sleeplessness is irrational, like concern for if you left the sink on when you just checked it, or what socks to wear tomorrow.

Fear me when you look into the night sky! I am immortality! Bwahahaha! Hamburglar, do you even burger?

Some people deal with fear by taking a massive DUMP.

People respond to fear in different ways, but usually it's an activator for motive on a physical level, even though the concept of fear itself is not. We fear a potentiality, a non-reality (as of yet). Sometimes it's good such that we can pre-react to it but most of the time this is not the case.

HappybirthdayPaulie!

If you fear your neighborhood's crime-rate is going up, would buying firearms be a good choice? Well, you'll work yourself up into a froth thinking about that all day, especially if you have a family. You'll worry a worst-case scenario and buy a revolver to even the odds but one could argue you're just "upping the ante". If you brandish a firearm at a crook who's intention was to make-off with some silverware, well, now you've given him not choice but to defend his own life in-kind. Usually crooks want a quick grab-and-go and are not the Buffalo Bills of the Silence of the Lambs variety (sadly).

Got lotion?

Some people just simply take-off when a cop asks them for their ID card. Some of those are riddled with guilt from crimes undetected previously, though often from the fear that there's no true justice and they're just victims and try to escape to "even the odds" so they at least have some kind of chance instead of a probable beat-down and arrest. This is probably what a lot of runners think in these instances I warrant.

You'll find the children on the Moon with my People, copper!

People vote in fear as well, and that's a delicious subject I'll let the reader ponder for a while. The non-scientific respond by way of potential fear of climate change through mankind's efforts though haven't worked-out the science behind it, taking word from paid-off fear-mongering scientists who grudgingly admit that there could be a very small percentage that mankind has any global impact on the stratosphere (other than space-lift and nukes). Tropospheric? Sure. Global (stratospheric) almost none. Look to the Sun for that issue, and the Milankovitch Cycle and non-even orbital patterns.

Fear is based on lack of knowledge. Certainly it's an eventuality, never an actual thing. You're never afraid of something happening right now. You're afraid of what might be. If someone is drilling-out your tooth, you're not afraid of that, though you might be in pain, and that's a different thing. You might be afraid that during the drilling the dentist (or psychopath) will screw-up and then you'll have issues. You really don't have time to worry about the car-accident that's happening right now, you're experiencing it, though if you have time in that accident you might worry again about the future of your insurance railroading you or if you or your passenger might survive. Again, eventualities. Possible situations. Fear is not real, it's the concern of the future, immediate or otherwise.

Okay, the clown here is a concern, I agree.

Ultimately, fear is in our minds. It only exists there, and we make it the monster that it is. Sometimes it's good, as in the case of astronaut Dracula, though being immortal has its perks I'm sure. We can shoot a kid in a neighborhood-watch volunteer job because of a fear of something (though in a fairly recent case because his head was being bashed-in when approached, though that bashing was possibly a fear-based response as well). We can buy an armory of guns in fear of the surrounding community perceived as a threat. We can amass nuclear armaments as a nation for the same reasons. Fear can prepare us for an inevitability, but we also are affected negatively towards that inevitability in various ways. We don't handle it like Spock might, logically, or a computer that accepts its fate, we deny it, we fight it. Animals can't. They panic, and bite out of fear.

Kitten uses "mew-mew-bite". Roll a 1d6 for damage, roll for saving-throw and initiative.

I used to take some small pleasure in trapping a computer in a corner of some Commodore 64 game back in the early 1980's to see how it would respond. I found over time it would make logical choices and eventually lose. This became less fun, torturing my opponent with a chaotic overpowering of some-sort, giving fewer and fewer options until it was trapped or doomed, teasing the enemy like a cat maliciously might out of fun. That's pretty chaotic-evil, even though it was only a computer opponent! One could argue no harm, no foul, I mean, it's only bits, right? Well.. the intent is there, and that's the scary part, no? The malice? I look at that youth with some scrutiny, myself, as if I was an alien to my own being.

I think I may have terrorized a few kitty cats a bit too, chased a few, set alarm-traps for a few, just some un-nerving stuff, really, no real harm, just psychological. I'm sure Karma's got her revenge by now in some form, my life not a bed of thornless roses. The point here is the computer didn't panic (though there is a thing called "Kernel Panic" but that's something else). The computer made its best choices and pressed on like a German girlfriend might. Cold and calculating and clear-headed. I sometimes wonder why we can't be that way, but that abstinence from fear.. does it make us less human?

Gonna get me dat pussay!

People have phobias, natural-ish fears of things, like spiders or snakes, heights or robots that come and take your medicine away from you. These may be genetic-memory fears, but some are more abstract and the phobia-list goes on, such as clowns, balloons, public spaces, undead, Space-Draculas, your significant other leaving you, someone you care about dying.. it goes on.

Erin Gray as Buck Rogers' Col. Wilma Deering loves her some of dat space vampire goodness, yeah... yeah..

Parents have a natural genetic makeup to chemically want to make sure their kids are safe to fault. Parents can almost never avoid this feeling; it's ingrained naturally and is how the species continues lest we leave baby at the market and go home forgetting all about that or caring whatsoever. Some people voted Obama, dooming their kids to a poor economy and cruel heath care system and praise Satan I guess, or Santana, I forget which.

Help us, we're slave-horses to these power-demons! I'm so happy I have no life now! Kill me! Kill me now!

That.. that boy just had me murdered three school teachers! He wants me to kill again! We have no choice!

I love my kids! I have no choice! My kids are the best! I love them.. love them.. love them.. I can't feel my hands!

Some people flirt with fear, such as motorcyclist racers (such as myself), trying to conquer it, overcome it, though the chemicals rush-in to try to argue with you and you try to fight fear itself, created by your own mind! Sure, the danger is real, but we have that fight-or-flight response, or a third of being paralyzed temporarily, slack-jawed. It takes effort to respond coolly.

Are you afraid you're gonna like riding bikes with Horatio Fluffy McFagg'n'stuff the Third?

Regardless of our own enemy within, fear can affect us and not let us think straight. Such things of the threat of pain, doom, suffering, etc., make us knee-jerk respond and worry ourselves sick or worse on a psychosomatic level, and we can lose sleep, and ultimately suffer for something that doesn't even exist yet. Funny thing, fear, and people's heads can get stepped-on in the process. Parents over-react to child-preservation. Haves load-up weaponry against have-nots, buy security systems, guards, ninjas, Hamburglar-thwarting devices, etc.

When Gandalf was talking about the "Secret Fire" in Khazad-dûm against the Balrog, he was talking about the Hamburglar.

So.. what's the point of all this? Well, try to realize if you're reacting to an internal fear. Even if it's an inevitability, as the Hitchhiker's Guide suggests, Don't Panic! Look at your options and choose a good one as best you can like a good old Commodore 64, all CLEAR HEADED-LIKE!

Here, Bob Serochin made a tactical error with his Ford Aerostar's windows as a defense against cheetahs.

As for the astronaut? He made the right choice. I looked into it. His partner did get turned into Count Dracula, and that's why we've never been back on the Moon, because Count Dracula's waiting there, and he's hungry. Look out!