Angst
Angst In My Pants was the name of a Sparks album (1982). After that, Angst got its own show. If postmodern philosophy was meant to deliver us from angst then Radiohead and Nirvana didn’t get the memo. Angst was written on the forehead of every teenager in the 90s many of whom have probably gravitated towards the creative sector themselves. 2022 saw EMO and its many variants grow like a monster baby. Gross and Musgrave’s 2020 book Can Music Make You Sick reported that 71.1% of respondents to their survey of over 2000 had suffered from anxiety and panic attacks and that around 68.5% said they had trouble with depression. Fear about climate change and the staying power of EMO are surely connected. I’d rather have one and not the other.
Bacteriophobia
Bacteriophobia, a fear of bacteria, is real and reflects a current global mood since the COVID-19 pandemic. That said, adverts have always told us that germs are evil, and their cleaning products, full of chemicals and made of plastic are out there - go buy now. Air pollution in the home is now a genuine fact to be feared. The crazy things parents do in the name of love, or is that fear?
My Christian parents did the washing up together singing ‘All Things Bright And Beautiful’, in harmony. One day I found an aerosol can of smelly stuff in the toilet and had to send them to bed without any supper. The washing up was not done. I was 13.
Enter the letter C
Fiction loves words beginning with C that imply fear: creepy house, cowering in the corner, cold sweats, cliff hangers and chilled to the bone. In fiction sometimes not facing fear is cowardly or protagonists enter a scene with caution. Self-help writers implore us to take courage or to conquer our inner fears; as if they were nothing but the dark shapes that lurked in our childhood rooms at night which were really your school uniform hanging on the door or your bicycle crash helmet on your teddy. What we need to fear beginning with C is climate change.
Dread
Fear is dread. Dreading a violent death, a sudden death or the loss of a loved one, even a pet, that will die before you - that is a dreadful fact. Dread is fear personified: losing your home, your job, your memory or sanity. Indie music is very good at producing existential dread. Pay Nick Cave a visit but don’t say you weren’t warned. What we need to dread is climate change.
Emotion
Fear is an emotion so films and books have a lot of fun building the tension and suspense in a scene to evoke a sense that something fearful is about to happen. Apparently, in an interview, Ridley Scott explained that in the film Alien, they shocked and horrified the audience with the chest-burster scene and then they could just torture the audience with suspense for the rest of the movie. Alfred Hitchcock is referred to as the master of suspense. The Internet is awash with blog posts that define his Top 10 moments. In my opinion, the man himself evoked more justifiable fear in his female characters, particularly Tippi Hendren, through unwelcome attentions and abusive, domineering behaviour.
PS: We need to get emotional about climate change.
Fear
John Keats wrote, “When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be,” in 1818, only a few short years before his actual death (1821) which was about the fear of infamy rather than marking his mark. “Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain/Before high piled books, in charact’ry/Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain.” If you visit his grave in Cemitero Acattolico, the protestant graveyard in Rome, you will see the inscription ‘whose name was writ in water’ on Keats’ gravestone; his instructions, since he was so sure that his fear would not come into fruition. Our fear of global warming has been realised - no one will get to be famous.
PS: If you’re not a poet - count yourself lucky on several counts.
Ghosts and Ghouls
If that’s all you have to fear I’d say you’re quids in not being an innocent in war, abuse or victims of other criminality. Some people say all your ancestors are standing behind you - which explains why I sometimes feel claustrophobic in my home office or why I get funny looks when queueing at the bus stop. If ghosts are true I can send my parents on a carbon footprint course. I’m off to turn down my heating.