What Are You Afraid Of?

Fear, anxiety, nerves, and getting past them

Hi Zan, Hi Pa

Volume #43

June 25th, 2025

HI, PA: I’m writing to you from the island of Curaçao, where I recently had a bunch of scuba diving experiences, including a few scary dives in intense currents that pushed me to my mental edge in some ways. So I’m wondering: what are you afraid of?

HI, ZAN: I’m glad you’re okay.

I’m not a particularly fearful person, but, even so, the list of fears is long for me, depending on what level of fear we’re talking about. I guess that’s the price one pays for an active imagination.

In terms of pure physical terror, I suppose being sent to a violent prison or being tortured would top the list. A super turbulent plane flight. What’s on your list? And what do you see as the root of fear?

ZAN: I’ll admit to developing some turbulence anxiety (a funny affliction for a travel writer) in recent years, and I’m an extremely careful driver because one of my greatest fears is getting into a serious car accident. Being out in the middle of a rough ocean is just about the worst experience I can imagine (and unfortunately something I have to put up with in small doses to scuba dive), and for some inexplicable reason moths freak me out to the point where I’ll shriek if I see one.

PA: Moths for you. Mice or spiders for some people. A muddy lake bottom, driving over a bridge, snakes, bees, alligators—you wonder where these fears come from! I don’t seem to have any of that particular variety of fear…well, maybe alligators. I don’t mind bugs, I like snakes, I think mice are cute, and mud on the soles of my feet feels nice.

ZAN: Fear is in the eye of the beholder?

As irrational as some of these fears may seem, at the root of them I see our physical survival instinct in action—how would we have known not to eat the poisonous mushrooms or avoid predators if our bodies didn’t send us some kind of warning signal? But in the generations since we needed to be constantly on guard in order to survive, it seems that we’ve misplaced some of that fear. Which could be partly behind the rise in self-reported anxiety.

What would you say is the difference between anxiety and fear?

PA: They’re certainly connected. Anxiety seems to me more general and probably less intense, a kind of low-grade fear-fever that isn’t always prompted by one specific object or situation but is, sadly, a default setting for some people.

Yes, to the survival instinct connection. For sure. I think fear is almost always a projection, almost always in the future. If you’re in bad turbulence, you’re afraid the plane will crash, but it obviously hasn’t crashed yet. If you’re driving in darkness through what you believe is a dangerous neighborhood—as I did a few times as a cabbie in Boston—probably nothing has actually happened yet; you’re only picturing what could happen. If you’re terrified before going into surgery, you’re afraid of something that hasn’t happened. . .and probably won’t happen.

I used to be really afraid of flying, and really afraid of water. Meditation has helped me ‘see’ those fears as thoughts and reduce them greatly. That took years, but it’s fascinating to me how the mind plays its tricks.

What common fears are you not plagued by?

ZAN: A fear of public speaking, for one! Sure, I get a little nervous every time I have to get up in front of a crowd, but I’ve performed onstage in various ways since childhood, so I know I can do it.

Another one is a fear of injections—I’ve heard stories from phlebotomists about fully capable adults (including muscular, tattooed biker guys) cowering at the sight of a needle or even fainting. Since I have a lot of health issues and have gotten poked and prodded for as long as I can remember, needles feel no less invasive to me than getting my blood pressure taken.

Which makes me wonder—do you think our fears are just experiences we haven’t gotten used to? Or is it possible to fear something even if you’re accustomed to it?

PA: Great question. I don’t know. For some people, more of the frightening experience just leads to deeper trauma; for others, maybe they get used to it, or even overcome it. I had a friend, a strong guy and marathon runner, who passed out whenever he received an injection. I remember that you used to actually enjoy getting your blood taken, even when you were in grade school, and that you were always brave about the multiple CF appointments and tests and surgeries you had to endure. (The throat cultures were a kind of torture.)

ZAN: Still not a fan of throat cultures—one of the more fear-producing medical procedures!

PA: An awful thing to experience, and you experienced it multiple times at a very young age. I hated to watch.

My mother was fearless when it came to medical stuff—eye injections, intestinal surgeries, you name it—but absolutely terrified of heights.

I guess we could divide fears into physical and not physical. Being afraid of going to the dentist, or of having a particular disease, or of falling (more common as one ages) would be in the former category. And public speaking, fear of intimacy, or agoraphobia would fall into the latter. Which kind do you think is worse?

ZAN: In a lot of ways, I think the non-physical fears are worse. Physical fears mean worrying about what might happen to you, while non-physical fears are worrying about how you might mentally react to a situation. Things like getting your teeth drilled into or coming down with a terrible illness are beyond your control, while fear of intimacy or agoraphobia make you feel even more vulnerable because they expose a certain lack of trust in yourself. And what’s scarier than that?

PA: Right. And what can we say about the fear of looking deeply into oneself, psychologically? Exploring our shadowed places?