Scratch

Here you will find older scratches, musings and other detritus that once were located on the front pages, but have now faded.

Filed away here to collect dust and cobwwwebs in perpetuity, links may break, facts may change and data may corrupt.

On occasion I may come down here to tidy, but for the most, I prefer to leave the past where it lies.

 

Fear Of...

Apropro of nothing, Smully forwarded to me the Phobialist, which I read during the course of the day. Most of these I can understand, spiders, the dark, heck even dark spiders, but I there are those I struggle with:

1. Levophobia: fear of things to the left side of the body. avoided by spinning quickly?;
2. Gnosiophobia: fear of knowledge. avoided by not reading/listening to anything?;
3. Phronemophobia: fear of thinking. suggestions? Perhaps Eastenders 24/7...;

and obviously perhaps the cruelist of all...

4. Venustraphobia: fear of beautiful women. Dear God, keep Keira Knightley away from me...

Part of this got me thinking, about my 'fear' of heights, and when I think about it, its not as simple as I originally thought. The only time I ever consider this, is when standing on very tall buildings staring at the ant like people on the ground very far away* or, for example, last year where I walked round the inside of St. Peter's Basilca to reach the Cupola.

Thinking about this rationally though I have deduced the following. First, as I can stand up without diving to the floor, or stare out a plane window or off of a mountain, I can't be afraid of the distance between my eyes and the ground, so its not solely the honest to God height thats a problem. Secondly, I am not scared of ant sized people, 'nuff said. Lastly, whilst I am concerned about the rather rapid acceleration followed by the instantaneous deceleration, I wouldn't say it bothers me that much.

Yet as I sit here and type this, thinking about those stairs in the Vatican, my palms are clammy and I have this sick feeling in my stomach, which is stupid given however careless I am, I cannot fall off of the floor upon which I am currently sitting.

Only the other day, someone pointed out to me the fact that people were given funding for studying the bloody obvious and now I'm wondering whether I can obtain funding to test this. Perhaps in the interim I can say I just have a combination of dislikes** rather than a paralysing fear.

Of course, the stupid thing about this is that the physical symptom, ie sweating through my hands, isn't really that conducive to hanging on for dear life...

27 Apr 2006 18:18 | (0) comments | Thoughts

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