The Fun of Fear

The house was well decorated for Halloween. Spiderwebs were stretched out over the bushes in front of the house. The pathway leading to the door was lined with garden lights painted to look like bloodshot eyeballs. The residents had left the main door wide open, leaving only the large single pane glass door closed so they could see trick or treaters approaching. A blonde woman, sitting on the couch looked over and saw my daughter, dressed in a thick gold-star bedazzled purple coat, colorful tutu, and butterfly wings, making her way up the pathway. She got up and opened the door with a friendly smile, setting off a motion activated speaker which emitted the sound of a cartoon witch cackling gleefully.

My daughter froze, torn between the promise of candy and her fight or flight response pressing all the buttons in her brain to get the heck out of there. The woman put some candy in my child’s pink pumpkin bucket and for the first time I realized that there was a problem. My wife and I were at the sidewalk with our eleven-month old lounging in his stroller, comfortably snuggled in a warm mouse costume complete with mittens and a hood, so it took me a while to notice how stiff and still my daughter was. She was trying to turn around and find her way safely back down the stairs, but also trying to cover her ears. The woman was guiding her, holding onto her arm, making sure she didn’t take a tumble in her attempt to escape. I quickly walked up and finished helping her down the stairs, thanking the woman while she was apologizing to me and I, in turn, assured her that everything was fine. Seriously, there’s no need to apologize for having a cackling witch on your premise on Halloween night.

The rest of the night went on without incident and overall we all had a lot of fun walking around the neighborhood watching my ballerina butterfly princess collect candy. However, she would frequently ask before going to the next house, “Will there be any noises at this house?” I told her, truthfully, that I didn’t know. It was possible. My wife and I assured her that whatever she saw or heard tonight, no matter how scary it seemed, it was all just make believe. It was just for fun. It’s this concept, this equation of scary = fun, that she’s not ready to embrace.

Some people never embrace it. Some people embrace it so much that it becomes a cornerstone of their lives. The scary = fun people are the ones making horror movies and working with gallons of corn syrup and red food dye to make their gruesome props. They are prolific writers of the macabre, sometimes joining with illustrators tasked with employing their artistic abilities to create Hellish landscapes, mutated grotesqueries, and all the guts and gore that one finds in these publications. They are the neighborhood families that take a year’s worth of preparation to transform their yards into haunted attractions for everyone to enjoy on Halloween night. And I imagine people like my daughter must think, “What is wrong with these people?” It’s a fair question.

There are many different psychological and sociological facets that contribute to the scary = fun equation but I’m neither educated enough nor patient enough to go down that rabbit hole right now. Instead, I just want to point out some personal observations about the fun side of fear. The observation starts with a family member.

My oldest sister as endured some of the most terrifying things a person could possibly have to face. Over twenty years ago her cardiology team decided that there was nothing more they could do for failing heart and put her on a transplant list. A donor was eventually found and she received a new heart. Years later she gave birth to a little girl, becoming the first heart transplant recipient in Arkansas to do so. We fear for our health. We fear for our children. We fear for their health, emotional and physical. We fear for our safety, our economic stability, and our own general well being. My sister has experienced all of these fears, compounded by a nearly haunting history of our family’s heart disease. But I remembered something. At least, I thought I remembered something, so I called her this afternoon to check. Asked my sister if she used to like roller coasters. She laughed and said she loves roller coasters. Present tense. She still loves roller coasters.

Roller coasters have something in common with scary movies, haunted house attractions, and cackling witches on Halloween night. Roller coasters present us with an opportunity to feel fear. When we ride a roller coaster it’s as though we are in immediate danger of extreme bodily harm. From the creaky wooden coasters that loop in on themselves, seeming to dive under low hanging support beams that cause us to instinctively duck, to the slick steel coasters that twist and spin us until we no longer know for sure if we’re rightside up or upside down, these machines are created to thrill and terrify. But the key difference between roller coasters and heart transplants… (okay, there are a lot of differences between roller coasters and heart transplants, but stick with me here), is that no matter how scared you get on a roller coaster, you know it’s just for fun. You know you’re safe. But being able to feel that fear in the confines of a regulated, well inspected thrill ride provides that adrenaline fueled rush of fear that becomes a catharsis for our real world fears.

It doesn’t work that way for everyone. In some, fear is always an unpleasant sensation. In others, it’s worse. It exacerbates existing fears. But for some of us scary = fun, and we’re more than willing to take that ride.