I have had a rough week; I got sick, work has been horrible, my iPod keeps crashing but I don't want to spend money to get a new one (now that I actually have some money in my savings); etc. I just sat down after a long day and long week, so I'm not going to take long to post. I will say that I can't think of too much that I am afraid of, at least things that would be interesting to post. Other people here, they have strange phobias or interesting fears, or at least interesting stories about their fears and phobias.
The thing that I am probably most scared of is death; but not in any abnormal sense, I don't think. And I think I'm more scared of what comes after (I haven't decided whether I like the idea of a heaven/afterlife/eternity or not- not that it matters) and of the way that it will happen. Related to that, I'm also scared of losing my mind; meaning, getting a disease that involves dementia, or loss of memories. That scares me pretty bad; mostly that stuff happening when I am young (when I'm old, I can just kill myself).
As far as everyday stuff, I am afraid of heights; mostly, I'm scared of flying. I have never been on a plane, and I'm pretty terrified to get on one. Whenever I'm up very high looking over a rail or something, I am flustered at first; like when I went to a football game at Dolphin Stadium, and we were quite high up, when I looked down it took me a few minutes to get used to it. But I got over it pretty quickly. So I think that I will probably get over it whenever I get on a plane. I don't like spiders, but I am not scared of them; I will kill them, as opposed to what I usually do with bugs (I take them outside). But that's because some spiders bite, and I don't know which ones do and which ones don't. Can't think of any real strange fears or phobias really.
When I was little, I was obsessively afraid of the Christian version of the end of the world. Growing up in Lake City, everyone went to church, except (it seemed) my family (which I am now in retrospect very thankful for), so I wasn't exposed to the fire and brimstone shit, nor was I exposed to the wonderful little gems in the Book of Revelations. I remember staying at a friends house, who was very Christian and whose family went to Church every Sunday (and who also had pornography in the house and swore like a sailor- I didn't see the irony in that situation at the time), and they were very into the end times; I ended up watching one of these "news" shows with the Hal Lindsey-esque end of the world prophesy watch, and descriptions of how the end of the world would be and the fact that with all of the crap happening in the world (this was probably like 1990 or something) we were on the cusp of the rapture. Then there is this movie that I saw some of, called Thief in the Night if I remember correctly, and it scared me shitless. And then I remember having nightmares for quite a while about the end of the world. Now, I find it very interesting, and completely ridiculous, and I join the Christians in waiting for the end to happen; I'd like to see if they are right. Better to find out that way than after I die, right?
With that, I'm off to rest.
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6 comments:
I was also scared of the end of the world, but my family was crazy religious (not "crazy" as in "very"; "crazy" as in "insane"). I think that causing children is live in constant fear of armadegon is child abuse... but maybe that's just me.
On another topic, you should ride on a plane. It's fun.
By the way, that was me.
Melissa, Loyal Reader
I can't believe you've never flown. Don't let my terrible fear dissuade you.
I dislike the idea of a fire and brimstone afterlife where only christians of a certain breed will end up, but all the good people of all the other religions will wind up in Hell. That's what made me become agnostic. And thinking about things.
I've had nightmares about the rapture. Though I wasn't raised in a fire and brimstone church (Lutherans and Presbyterians don't generally swing that way), my mother has introduced me to the joy of an ever-impending apocalypse. Thanks so much mom.
I was only scared of the end of the world and all that for a few years. I then realized that it was extremely silly, and more than a little sinister; it always disturbed me how many of those real evangelical Christians did things that they would have you think are "good Christian" things but were really for sinister reasons: they want the Rapture to happen right now because they either are secretly insecure about their own faith, or (this I think is most common) they actually like the idea of being swept up with Jesus as part of a select group while millions of other people will suffer through the 7-year tribulation. That's total shit. Also, they fervently support Israel, not just because they believe Israel deserves to be a state, but because Israel has to be there for the end of the world to happen, and the Jews have an important role to play in the end times: namely, to either convert to Christianity or be slaughtered. This is all stuff I found out when I was younger, which was codified when I attended for one term the extremely right-wing Christian university founded by Pat Robertson. Besides all that, I decided a long time ago that I'd probably rather not believe in a God who would even allow people to burn in eternity in Hell.
The only thing that actually still scares me about the end of the world stuff is the amount of people out there (I'd include our current president in this, as long as many other politicians) who want to force God's hand and bring about the end of the world. As if it isn't ridiculous to think that you could force God's hand; it is completely damaging to our world. Why are these people so anti-environmentalist? Because they either don't care about depleting our resources and planet, because they don't believe we'll be here much longer, or they want to actively deplete things because they think that is prerequisite to the end times. Same thing with our deficit; who cares about all that if we won't be here much longer, and in addition to that, the conflict that causes within the country and by extension the rest of the world may hasten the end times. I believe the same can explain our president's escapades in the middle east, and his obsessive insistence that he's right no matter how low his approval is and he's not going to stop no matter what. End of rant.
Nick - I would just like to let you know that my family didn't go to church either! I thought we were the only family in lake city who didn't go to church, and in elementary school, i found myself lying and claiming that I attended a certain church, just so as not to be bothered by others about why i didn't go.
Also, I am not afraid of the Revelation version of the "End Times" simply because I don't believe it will happen. Not that we couldn't have an end of the world scenario based on W's dicking around in the whitehouse, but somehow I don't think that's going to cause the rapture... I *am* afraid of evangelical christians though.
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