The Top Five

It’s a blast from the past!

On this day in 2024, an extremely brief blog post:

Fear (Village Green/Town², September 16, 2014)

Five things that scare me:

1. Football players beating four year old children
2. Online ads that follow senior citizens around the internet
3. Dancing With the Stars (wow, is that ever creepy!)
4. Open Forums where "anything can happen"
5. Depression

What's your list?

Here are some responses I got from readers in 2014:

1. One-party states (of either party)

2. People who don't accept facts that don't comport with their worldview

3. The X-15 Cruise Basselope*

*sorry for the geek humor, but hey, I'm a geek. :-)

1. Intransigent people

2. religious fundamentalists of any denomination

3. Senseless violence (all violence is senseless)

4. Hatred

5. roller coasters

Clowns

Ferris Wheels

Senior Week (planning has begun)

and what you said ^^^

*****

I’m bringing back that same question today. My answers? 

1. Misogyny 
2. COVID and Long COVID
3. Evangelical Christianity 
4. Open Forums where “anything can happen”
5. Anxiety

This isn’t a complete list, of course. It’s just the top five of what came to mind this morning. There’s plenty going on in the world that is fear-worthy right now. I don’t know whether talking about fear was on your list of Friday things to do but perhaps a fear shared is less frightening. Putting it out there renders it a bit less powerful. 

If you had asked me this question when I was little, my answers would have looked like this:

1. Dead balloons
2. Nightmares 
3. Long car drives at night
4. The Perry Mason theme music
5. Gymnastics/Tumbling in gym class

Even thinking about it now resurrects some of that deep, tingly dread from childhood.

How have you learned to cope with - - and even overcome - -  fear? Are there any childhood fears that still lurk around? 

Any advice on how to render fears less troubling and more toothless would be awesome.