Phobophobia -- Writer's Poke #94

For Writers:

In 1933, FDR uttered these famous words: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Fear of fear, otherwise known as “phobophobia,” is a rather silly fear, don’t you think? And apparently Mr. Roosevelt never visited “The Phobia List” web site: http://www.phobialist.com/. That web site lists just about every phobia under the sun, including “heliophobia,” or fear of the sun.

I’m sure that Roosevelt meant well. Americans were dealing with the Great Depression and all that, and I'm sure he wanted to send out a positive message of hope; however, he should have distinguished, as Buddhists do, between healthy and unhealthy fears. Admittedly, saying “The only thing we have to fear is unhealthy fears” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

Healthy fears, however, should be recognized as useful. In an evolutionary sense, fear is what has gotten us to where we are as a species today, and I mean that in a positive way.

Today, consult “The Phobia List” web site. Pick one of the fears listed there, and write about why someone might develop such a phobia; or, write about a phobia that you have, and examine whether it falls into the “healthy” or “unhealthy” category.

“In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Comments

Jesus and the Inconvenience of His Word to American Christians

I'm not a preacher, but if you follow the teachings of Jesus, it was he who said: Do to others as you would have them do to you. That's from Luke 6:31 , and reading all of Luke 6 isn't a bad way to spend five minutes of your time. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%206&version=NIV I guess a lot of Christians understand the Golden Rule and practice it in their daily lives. Others, however, especially political Christians (and specifically those promoting Christian Nationalism) seem to ignore the Golden Rule. They don't care about humanitarian issues. They claim they either don't exist, aren't the problem of the United States, or are the fault of the victims. They counter with distractions like, "Why do you care so much about THEM when you should be caring about the REAL people who matter?" Sorry, but I don't recall Jesus ever dividing people into those who matter more and those who matter less. Of course, Jesus also said not to j...

Microblogging? The Future of Writing with ADHD

Bill Bennett is a very common name. Right now, I'm reading a book by the Australian film maker Bill Bennett. He hiked the Camino in 2013 and then wrote a book (and made an Australian movie, not available in the U.S.) about it. Seems he kept a blog about that hike, too. I went to look for his Camino blog, and found he started one years after the hike, but he didn't post regularly... His last post from 2022 announced his had Parkinson's and had kept the diagnosis secret for 4 years. Now that almost three years have passed from that post, I wonder what's happened to him. Blogs are weird. They just sit there. Anyone can stumble upon them, and read them. So I decided to keep looking for his Camino blog. https://billbennett.blog/home/ *** And I found another Bill Bennett, this one from New Zealand, who keeps a microblog. It's current and updated. "What's a microblog?" My wife asked. Well, I said, it's a small blog. Just a sentence or two for a post. ...

"Contest"

Who cares if I don’t? Students spur me to pierce their unresponsiveness.

The Writer's Poke

Search This Blog