# Fear Of The Dark

## Concept

Pinballs are heavy. Fact.
I don't feel fear. Belief.
You may need a second stomach. Fear.

## The first time

It happened a Tuesday and I was 16. There was a guy roughing up other people for a few months. Not too hard. But I am not into submission. I knew he'd come for me. So that's not a heroic tale, I decided early on. I'll go into it when it comes for me or someone that feels decent enough. I was sitting on the back of a bench, and sure he came. I grabbed him and I jumped over him. We felt like crap. The guy was fast. I wasn't. And he played soccer. I sure did not. So he stood up fast. And bam, instantly kicked my face like a ball. Full strength. I was still trying sitting on the floor, I did not move. I felt my bone. It is a good kick, I felt. I was really angry at that point. It was like cockroaches on a pizza, intolerable. I quickly stood up, now I had something to do with my time. I wanted payback. And I started marching toward him, staring at him. The fight seemed obvious, he was better than me, and I did not care: he'll kick me, and I will just move forward and strangle the little bitch. One more step. He stepped back. I am looking at his legs and arm then back at him. I continue. He's moving back. One of his friends is near, on my right. I looked at him. I don't really care which one I strangle. His hands make a little gesture of submission. He felt like non-combatant personnel. I was galvanized. I felt implacable.

That's when the teacher came. We pretended nothing had happened, some rules still applied. No one was ever bullied afterwards. Now, I don't know why the guy stopped exactly, it was perhaps already a bit muddy, teachers noticed, I don't know. That was my first and last "fight": I took a kick in the face, happy end. Let's be clear, here: it did not give me appetite for that. I prefer to talk.

Now, the thing is, it is a true story. And that was the first time I realized my relation to pain and fear may be different. But in many ways, I was, especially later, an act of will power. Nicotine and caffeine, 48 hours burning through study. It was a bit march or die anyway. I needed to graduate, that was very important. So I imagined for a very long time that I had a strong mind. The stoic guy, Clint Eastwood, laughing in the face of death, the result of a life of struggle. Well, I don't think it is the case.

Just one thing: the guy did a perfect kick... for a soccer player. Flat-footed side-foot soccer stroke in the cheek. So the guy had a good control of the ball, but it is not like the guy hit my ears with Dr. Martens. I was lucky on this one. In fact, there is a story from Marcel Pagnol... what, nobody cares?

## The pain

My tolerance to pain is extreme. I can pee blood, extreme fever. I don't feel tooth decay. I like the dentist. The seat is always good. Anesthesia? No thank you! I feel a bit asleep, often. Sometimes I am like, "this one would hurt". I remembered that 2 years later the dentist asked me why I did not come earlier. I said I did not feel anything. He said it's impossible. He pressed his metal stuff inside. And now? No... He pushed harder, that asshole! The guy was metal-fucking my tooth. But nothing. I have sensation though. I know where it is and that it is a form of pain. My dog bit me 15 times on the hand. But I had to take away the small thing she had grabbed. I was bleeding all over the hand. She peed herself. I am happy that pee is sterile, I thought.

There are only two things that made me hurt. The eyes, after incisions on my corneas. I don't know if that itself is supposed to hurt but it did not. What hurt me is light entering through that shit. That's something fucking hellish pain. And honestly if at times debilitating, it was kind of interesting. I did not know that pain, it is raw. The other thing is my bowels, from stress according to the doctor. I should have studied these two cases a bit more.

## The fear

So, fear is not something absolutely medical. Especially if we go down to English and all the sentences including fear. "I fear it might rain tomorrow.", well, I can sure feel that. I fear about humanity's future, how we are becoming brainless and violent as a society. But anyway, we are talking about real fear. The beast in us that says flee, fight, flight. Or something like that. I am not sure guys. The fear of death! Ah, this one exists, I think. Because if not, we'd be dead. Well, I am not dead. Ok, bear with me.

I don't fear death. Not in an abstract way, even if I also don't fear death in that way. I mean like imminent death.

We had a car accident, everyone was sleeping. Especially the driver. And when everyone woke up, it was panic. Like, people were breathless. I tried to help, but they were all being difficult. It felt rather bad. I sat down. We were now so fucked the road barrier was in front of us, and we were going forward. And I thought: fuck, it is so slow, let's end it.

The first American who ever talked to me, I remember it well. He was looking at me, hand on his gun, at the airport near NYC. And he said: step back! And I was thinking that looking behind me at that moment felt like a stupid idea. He was talking to me. No shit. I caught his eye. I looked down while still looking at him. No, it is not possible, but it felt like that. My foot was on a writing: don't cross the yellow line. It was the yellow line. I tried hard to make my move slow, but not annoyingly so. Like it moves, it is not deniable. But the foot has no other intention than coming back on the right side. That was it. It was funny because in NYC, a homeless dude came to me saying "hey, you, son of a bitch!!", and I replied: step back. He did a 180° like Tony Hawk.

Ah, one that is spooky fun. I was in an abandoned building to meet a friend. Half the lights did not work. I mean, half the lights did work! It smelled like a dead cow, the thing was destroyed, holes in the walls, tables mounted on top of the other, stuff I won't write, the carpet was pure filth, and not a fucking sound but the neon blinking. I decided to go take a pee. I entered. Interesting. Black, some sort of faux-marble that looked cheap. Very dark. So I look around, I listen. I look at the doors. Below. Clear. I won't die alone, motherfuckers. So I move one step. It was moving above me. No doubt. I smoothly continue while thinking. We are not in a movie. Can I see something moving above me, even? Yeah, seems so. The thing is right above me and following me. I stop. I decided. 2 steps, I turn to it, and I give it all. And so I do. What a plan! So I do exactly that. And that was me. The guys put a fucking mirror as a ceiling! In toilets? How insane is that? So we can inspect who pees and who is using its smartphone in a shithole?

So here is the thing, I have not felt fear in decades, in the sense that I can't distinguish the fact of being under fear and not. Except for feeling that things slow down, adrenaline is kicking. At that point, I feel a bit heroic. Let me be stupid a bit. I mean: I feel no fear. Bitches. That's kinda cool, no? Hit me plenty!

## No pain and no fear

This is absolutely unrelated but there is a book: I have no mouth and I must scream. One of the best titles ever. S.F., really impressive stuff.

So first, it is not a disease. There is a disease (unclear about the terms), born without pain. So I searched about it. I read the case of a kid. They pulled out his teeth so he does not eat his remaining fingers. Fuck. Poor kids. I am lucky, that's not what I have. I remember pain and fear. I know that a knife cut. I know when it touches me, and I don't want to be cut. But I could certainly chop my own finger if it had a price. No pain, no gain! Ah, fuck.

Same for fear. It is not because I don't fear death that I want to die. I don't fear taxes, but I prefer not to have them. Taxes and death, right, sure thing.

But there is something I feel is connected. People are afraid of me when I am in this state. I have had security coming to me and I looked at them like "you don't want to do that". One apologized. I had a guy, he wanted to steal my device, and it was a device I used to study Japanese. It took me 1 month to get the device working. The thing was a Hp iPAQ hx4700. Just cross-compiling the kernel took 48 hours. Anyway! Too many details in that page. So the guy, physically, he was like Michael Jordan, but not nice. And he had an improvised knife on my neck. So I grab his t-shirt, and I remember the angst. And I said: That's enough! And in the blink of an eye, he was two meters away. The guy would have crushed me. But he didn't.

Because you have fear, and so do others. And you read that fear. That gives intent, danger, ability. Social cues, within a context. Someone that shows zero fear, that's not something you can just ignore. Even if you have zero experience. And when it is that kind of situation, it is rather transactional: would you give me that device? I'd rather not. The escalation leads to shit: risk, maybe. Or if the guy is dumb (ha ha), his death, that's quite the escalation. I am not sure why lack of fear is not more prevalent. Perhaps there is after all more mortality in that group. Especially if we think about someone born like that and eating their own fingers.

## 20 years later

It was a Tuesday again. I don't remember why but I did a radiography of my back. I was waiting for the result. The doctor came in a hurry. Frightened. What had I done?

He asked me if I have had an accident. I said no. He asked me what happened to my back. I could not understand. He showed me the radiography. I have two lumbar vertebrae crushed against one another. There is no intervertebral disc. That's the spongy white stuff to soften things. I don't play soft. I have two bones crushing one another. So according to this doctor, I should not be able to walk. I should be on the floor agonizing. Unless it is very old. Well...

It is true that as long as I remember, this exact place was like torture. I was called a difficult baby always crying for nothing also. Sitting was insane, to me, for years. A seat would do, for whatever reason, but on the floor, I could not keep the position, it was like breaking. And it kind of very slowly faded away. But if I think about it, about the place, I know it is a tremendous pain. It is radiating over 10 cm through muscle, perhaps 4 inches in diameter, and even further through the bone, pulsating and hot. I don't hurt, but I can feel the pain is immense, it just does not leave the place. And sometimes, when I am tired or I sat on a floor, it comes stronger. I am so used to it it is background pain. But I do avoid some position I just can't sustain it. It is like a wall sit exercise to me.

And now, we enter the science of pain.

## Cyber Frankenstein

So I can back up a few things, but I'm no specialist. I can find one study going in one direction. I don't know if it is bullshit and convenient to me, or really something.

I possibly don't feel pain while still feeling my back pain because I was lucky enough for my brain in a very early age to adapt to it. But it does not feel it is a surgical strike, the whole pain system is impacted, and not even equally. That's why bowel pain should have made me think. Here I am quite categorical, visceral and somatic sensory neurons are differentiated and create different pains ([ref](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2732716/),[ref2](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7141966), [ref3](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3272481), [ref3](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11508441)). You can sort of feel it. If you hurt somewhere, on the surface, you can quite accurately say where. When it comes to bowel, it feels like the barycenter of the stomach, it is very imprecise. As for the cornea, it is one of the most densely innervated part of the body. The corneal sensitivity is hundreds of times that of skin ([ref](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5872636)). Funnily enough, the retina under it is basically insensible to pain ([ref](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3485070)).

I can cut my fingers with paper for fun. It's really a disgusting cut. In fact... why it cuts is not even resolved. Why does paper even cut skin? [Real question](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39294970/), no answer. Anyway as much as that the composition is central ([ref](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39294970/)) for why it cuts, the fibres give a tremendous amount of micro-cuts that can be seen under a microscope. Now, read [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_cut) and tell me it's not trash. Rethink your life. But I would not with my cornea. Like no, thank you. Death by a thousand cuts, I don't know. Depends on the paper, also.

But experiments ([ref](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304395906006701?via%3Dihub)) have shown, not demonstrated that the Nociceptive input (the "you hurt") is heavily modulated in the nervous system. It is like searching the Internet with Google Search, it is sampled. So the result showed a substantial habituation to repeated painful stimulation, including reduced subjective pain and reduced activity in several brain regions involved in pain processing. That's me, I think. Did I say something stupid?

And fear itself, shows different levels of perceptual fear even for twins ([ref](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22008475/)). Meaning only: it seems to not be pure genetic lottery.

## Conclusion

Well, the conclusion is that I feel really free. And I do think this factor contributed to it.

### It was a blessing in my life.

I cannot really be intimidated. I had an intern that was annoyed once with some bullshit racism by the boss of my boss, well not on my watch, I fucking killed it, I can tell you. I fear no authority, no brutality. I feel strong against absurdity. Stronger because it isn't will power. I was fortunate enough to be dropped and neglected, it seems. Lucky me.

And I feel it's kind of a skill in itself. I feel less at risk, less personal, but I can be rightfully angry. So I don't know, I have used it for good sometimes, never for bad. And I think that's why I want to write more here. I want to give something that is not filled with fear. I am not sure if people understand how much fear there is in the content they are fed with. I can truly look at it, the little sparkle of that fear, the soundtrack shifting, the word rhythm, the sound of the voice, a word, the fear to be left alone.

So I may write for a few, from a lens that understands pain and fear, but a mind that can't be bothered with it.

Frank Herbert wrote: Fear is the mind killer.
I'd reply: maybe...