NBA referee Bennett Salvatore said in CS Fullerton Institute tonight: “The unknown is not that scary. Rather, it’s the knowledge of impending danger that evokes the emotion nothing short of absolute terror.”
As I pondered Bennett’s words, I thought of the tagline of the 1998 Michael Crichton survival-thriller Sphere: “Terror can fill any space.”
I took out a 3-by-5 note card and began jotting down my thoughts on the subject:
“I dissent from Bennett’s opinion. I believe the greatest fear is the fear of the unknown, because we do not know what to expect. It is not the monster himself in the closet, but the possibility that he is there that evokes the fear within. Once the monster is revealed to us, we may fear him, and rightly so, but the fear has nonetheless diminished, if only slightly, once the threat has come into the light, and our imaginative faculties are put into recess. Darkness, not danger, is the ultimate source of fear. No matter how grave the danger before us, it is never as great as what we can imagine it to be.”
