 Horror/Scary: May 07, 2008 Issue [#2375] |
  Horror/Scary
This week: Edited by: W.D.Wilcox  
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You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do. |
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A young girl is taking a short walk through the forest when she is suddenly gripped by fear. She turns and heads back toward her car certain that something is rushing at her from behind.
She moves faster. Fear swells with every step.
She spins around with a cry of terror to confront whatever is in pursuit of her.
But she is, of course, alone.
Then the fear again, worse than ever, the absolute dead certainty that it is coming-that it is gaining on her, that it will drag her down, that it is bent on committing an act infinitely worse than murder, that it has an inhuman purpose and unknown uses for her so strange they are beyond her conception. She is in the grip of terror so black and profound, so mindless, that she cannot summon the courage to turn and confront it.
She runs and staggers and flails uphill, making wordless sounds of blind panic-"Uh, uh, uhhhh, uh, uh"-all intellect repressed by instinct. Until she makes it to her car, then turns, at last, to scream-"No!"-at the nothing that is behind her.
FEAR
What is fear? How does it affect us?
The dictionary says:
Fear is an emotional response to tangible and realistic dangers. Fear should be distinguished from anxiety, an emotion that often arises out of proportion to the actual threat or danger involved, and can be subjectively experienced without any specific attention to the threatening object. People who are experiencing fear are said to be "scared".
Yeah, scared....
Have you ever been really scared?
I've been scared. I've been so scared I had to convince myself that I was going to die, or was already dead, and it really wasn't any ‘big' deal. Dead is dead, right? Only then, was I able to calm myself. Only then, was I able to look fear in the face.
But what are the effects of ‘fear'? What does it do to our bodies?
THE EFFECTS OF FEAR
There are two areas to consider when contemplating the effects of fear on your life. The first is the physical short term effect and the second is in how fear affects your life in general.
Fear is more than simply a mental state. It affects both the physiology of the body and the chemical balance of the brain as well. When people are afraid it generates ‘stress'. Extreme stress can manifest itself physically in a number of ways. In extreme cases it can cause tunnel vision, loss of color perception (color blindness), it can cause a distortion of both time and of depth perception.
Want a good example of this...?
Often when someone is involved in a serious auto accident they will describe these effects. They may say, "It was like everything was in slow motion", or, "Everything was in black and white". What they are describing is the effect of stress generated by fear. Fear (and the stress generated by it) will raise blood pressure. It will also deplete the immune system. Fear causes errors in judgment and prevents us from taking the most reasonable course of action.
The long-term effect of fear can be more devastating than the short term. We are all what we practice to be. If you practice baseball every day you will become a good baseball player. If you practice carpentry every day you will become a good carpenter. If you practice being happy every day, you will become happy. If you practice fear (anger) every day, you will become a fearful and angry person. People often train themselves to perpetuate these negative behaviors. There are times when this behavior has been practiced for so long that the person is unaware that they have a problem with fear and anger. It becomes their practiced behavior for dealing with any challenge.
I believe, as I'm sure some of you do too, that we are constantly being bombarded with fear-tactics by our news media and politicians.
For example, a day doesn't go by that we don't hear about Global Warming. We are told that our planet, and everything on it, is slowly dying. Not that that isn't bad enough, but we are also told that it is..ALL...OUR...FAULT.
What is the purpose here? Could it be that the masses are much easier to control if they are thrown into a state of constant fear?
I've been taught to believe (and have gobs of scientific data to illustrate my point) that our planet has the ability to heal itself. That no matter what we do (short of nuclear annihilation-and even if that happened Earth would bounce back if given enough time) we are incapable of destroying the planet. So face it, folks, we are no more significant than a bunch of cockroaches crawling over the face of this world; and though we have every capability of destroying ourselves, we could not bring about Earth's destruction.
Face your fear. Cast it aside. Don't let it control you. Refuse to fall for these fear-tactics.
Wouldn't you rather be happy? Wouldn't you feel better if you woke up every morning and thanked God for another glorious and wonderful new day: not just a day free of fear and anxiety, but a day filled with hope and promise?
Until next time,
billwilcox
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FEAR: The Horror Genre
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| |  | Fear the Lake (E)
How silly it was to fear the lake... when there was so much more to fear.
#1383066 by Bo-bo  |
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EeeeMail!!!
I Cook and I Know Things
Submitted Comment:
Now this, if nothing else, is one newsletter to which I can relate. I think every paper I've composed since entering college has been written under similar circumstances. Well done, sir.
StephBee 
Submitted Comment:
Now, Bill, if you only added a ghoul popping out of the corner while you were focusing on your deadlines, this would have been perfect.
sophie-cadden
Submitted Comment:
Hey, liked this Newsletter alot, very unique :)
dejavu_BIG computerprobs
Submitted Comment:
Great Newsletter, WD. I enjoyed your dramatic flair as well as the scattered nuggets of information throughout. Reminded me of someone trying to write in an ancient, old manor-house.
Keep up the great work!
Jaye P. Marshall 
Submitted Comment:
Bill, another great editorial. Loved the "musing" and the self-prodding. Don't we all need that once in a while.
IGWOOTEN
Submitted Comment:
 Hahahaha! Many of us horror writers are always looking over our shoulders as we write. The characters we create can become real to us. I think what you started in this newsletter has great potential as a horror story. "Deadlines" love the title. For someone who couldn't think of anything to write certainly wrote quite a bit. Ingenious format.
Keep up the good work!
IGW
Nomar Knight
Submitted Comment:
Superb job with the newsletter again. I love the way you turn every tasks into a horror event. Way to go!
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