The thing to fear, is fear itself, period

Motiongate Dubai, a Hollywood-inspired theme park located in Dubai Parks and Resorts. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Most fears in life, like that haunted hotel, are worse in thought than they are in real life.
  • As Eleanor Roosevelt remarked, “The only thing to fear, is fear itself.”
  • You see, most of our fears are unfounded although that does not make them any less real.
  • Fearing the givens of life can hold us in grip.

Last week, I finally ticked off something that was not on my bucket list. Entering a haunted hotel.

Now I’m the type of person who doesn’t understand why anyone would watch a horror movie, read Stephen King or even speak ill of the departed. Why invite trouble, I ask.

And so last week, when I found myself at the IMG theme park in Dubai, that had among other exciting activities, roller coaster rides and lifelike dinosaurs, I did the unimaginable. I gave in to a dare to enter the theme park’s star attraction, The Haunted Hotel.

“It’s not real,” we said as we signed up at the haunted hotel’s reception where we were welcomed by a deathly pale looking man. We held onto each other a little too tightly, our earlier bravado diminishing fast. First, we entered into an elevator that rattled and shook as if it was on a space mission.

STRANGELY ALIVE

When the elevator doors opened, it was into a dark cold corridor. We stepped forward and the elevator slammed shut. There we met another deathly pale looking woman who gave us instructions in an ominous shrill voice: “Remember to keep moving forward, and don’t look back,” she then melted into the darkness.

We held hands and inched slowly forward to be met by another eerie woman who scared us into screaming our lungs out. There were other actors, each one more other worldly than the previous one and each time, we screamed and ran forward.

We finally made it to the end of the hotel, emerging into a glorious light filled shop, laughing in relief and almost crying from the sheer horror of the experience. Afterwards, I had to sit down by myself in a nearby cafe, to come to terms with that ride.

I felt strangely alive and energised after it, so I theorised it must have been the surge of adrenalin that was still coursing through my body. Or perhaps it was that feeling of aliveness one gets from adventure sports, a high that is so addictive it keeps thrill seekers hooked.

Interestingly, I also felt light and happy. After all, I had faced a fear I did not know I had and come through in one piece. Life’s other fears could be conquered too, if I practiced what the eerie woman had told me. Keep moving forward. Don’t look back.

Most fears in life, like that haunted hotel, are worse in thought than they are in real life. If you were to turn on the lights, you would be disappointed by what you would see. The paintwork that is made to look like blood. The fake woven spider webs. The music playing from a CD. Truthfully, some cartoons are scarier.

HOLD IN A GRIP

The problem begins when you turn off the lights and turn on a fertile imagination that has been fed by horror movies and gore literature. In the end it is not the actors that scared us, it was what our minds interpreted the situation to be.

It did help that my colleague kept repeating, “It’s not real”. It did help that there was two of us offering each other moral support. It did help that we knew there was an end to the madness and sooner or later we would get there. As I sat in that cafeteria, I begun to examine my fears, turning them on their head, holding them up to the light.

As I did so, I begun to realise as Eleanor Roosevelt remarked, “The only thing to fear, is fear itself.” You see, most of our fears are unfounded although that does not make them any less real. We fear the dark. We fear aloneness.

We fear failing. Or success. We fear losing our health or property. We fear dying. Occasionally, we are so consumed by our fears that we are paralysed into not living. Fear has a hold on our hearts and emotions. Like a deer caught in the headlights, we refuse to move forward or take necessary calculated risks.

Fearing the givens of life can hold us in grip. The givens of life include loss. Beginnings and endings. Unpredictability. Unfairness. When we encounter life’s givens, we are to move forward, one step at a time, past the thing that terrifies us, until we come into the light.

And as we move forward, our faith becomes more than our fear, and that is really the best place to live out our lives. In faith. Faith that this too shall pass. Faith that we have not been given more than we can handle. Faith that the sun will rise again tomorrow. Funny how it took a haunted house to remind me.