“There was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves.” ——The Martian Chronicles I do believe that truth exists in this statement. Fear is all around us, people fear different stuff, all the stuff that becomes a threat to us. And this comes from our natural response to danger, or rather our natural desire to live. There is also another case, when we care too less about something, or too much, fear comes along. Darkness is the number one cause of fear. And when we talk about darkness, it’s the color black we’re talking about. But not exactly the color that made people scared, but the mirthless atmosphere and this invisible quirkiness about it. It’s represented as a power that you cannot see, but sucks everything in, encloses on you and you can just stand there in this complete darkness without knowing where to go. And you seem to be falling right in, falling and falling, and cannot touch the edges. Most people are scared probably because darkness can blind you and you will not know what lies around you and feel unsafe for the whole time. While some say, darkness isn’t anywhere but inside you, what’s inside you is a power you cannot resist. Some times when I lie in bed, especially at Sunday nights, I didn’t want to go to sleep, I didn’t want to wake up, I didn’t want to go to school on Monday, and I’m afraid of the future. And that’s a fear of a teenager. While my mom didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want to wake up, and didn’t want to work on Mondays. For elders, they might want to stop the time in place, live longer, and never reach to the day of their ends. We all have many reasons to fear about the future, because it’s good or bad that concerns us. But there are a small number of people who fear the future because they are completely blinded and they can see nothing of themselves in the future. Many people with out beliefs or live without enjoying life will fear the future too, because they’ll have nothing to look forward to, no where to grab. It’s like their souls are empty, they see themselves no where, in a blank background, and this nothingness freaks people out. The past is past. Gone with the wind. But it still might have left us with fear. A murderer would fear for the crimes he committed in the past. An unfortunate person would fear that the misfortunes he had gone through might come back again. A miserable person would fear to think about all these wonderful moments of the past because that will make her more miserable. And I think I belong to the last group Spider man had to fight over his bad side. Frodo had to overcome the dark power of ring as well as his other side of greed. And all these things to fear make them heroes. But the worst thing isn’t what other people can do to you, but what you can do to yourselves. When you lost your beliefs, you will lose everything. When ever we are empty, fear fills us up. So pretty much everyone has got something to be afraid of. And that is actually a good thing. The fear of death continues our living. The fear of darkness brings us to the lights. The fear of future opens our eyes to see how wonderful it is now. The fear of past treasures those moments in our heart. The fear of ourselves makes us behave ourselves. And the fear of our shadows helps us see each other better. . Fear is nothing, we all have our reasons. (圖片摘自deviantart.)