Fear No Mort - kapple19/kapple19 GitHub Wiki
This article is a response to a Rick and Morty episode titled "Fear No Mort" (Season 7 Episode 10). That show really loves punning on Rick's and Morty's names. Which is cool and all, but man does it stretch the pun a lot. Still, it's more creative than Friends' "The One With the (INSERT)" format.
My blog is full of niche, silly opinions like this, either snuck in parenthetically or the main idea of an article. To some degree my articles are a kind of TMI. Readers don't just get an idea of my philosophy, they can see into my soul. And cringe and joke at it all they please.
And how do I feel about that? Uncomfortable. For sure. So why isn't that stopping me? I actually don't know. I guess it's overpowered by the satisfaction of materialising my thoughts into some thematic structure, along with the opportunity to discuss these concepts with others, which has already paid off immensely.
I do know that another motivation for me to get my thoughts down here is my way of reaching out in search for others who may think the same way. For all our uniquenesses, the complicated Euler diagram of our shared traits, perspectives, experiences and emotions must also be accompanied by a longing to know others who overlap interests with ours. Which is why I don't dump this stuff in a journal. I do have a journal though.
I have a friend who will argue what s/he knows is wrong, strongly motivated by the fact that it results in people engaging with him/her. I know this because said friend has admitted this. No judgement here. I think that such moments act as some sort of self-comfort to know that people care about him/her, at least enough to correct him/her and let him/her know he's wrong as a protective measure? As in, people are trying to protect him/her?
That's akin to my seemingly unique love language of being corrected. I approach it differently to my friend, though. I honestly share my perspectives, and I don't like it when people just let me continue believing something that's incorrect. I once shared an opinion on a particular game, and my friend proceeded to educate me on the history of (im)balance changes in that game, and I'll be honest, I loved it. (The education, that is. Not the imbalances. Ha ha very funny Aaron.)
Speaking of being corrected, I just called it a love language, and corrections can be known to be delivered apathetically. In such a case, I don't feel the love. Personally I need the correction to be delivered kindly. But bluntly and clearly as well. Don't beat around the bush.
I think people beat around the bush because they fear confrontation. The fear losing control of a potentially emotional situation where, regardless of the reputation of the correctee, they'll still fear doing anything that would potentially contribute to an emotional explosion. To me, this behaviour actually contributes to the thing they're avoiding.
Such is a social blind spot. Probably one of my strongest fears: Having a negative impact on others that I don't know about, so I can't do anything about it. I can't fix it, or compensate for it, if I don't know about it. Which is why I feel loved when someone corrects me.
Okay, as you can probably tell, I could go on about fears all day, but I'm just so intensely curious as to what my experience would be if I jumped in the hole. You know, the Fear Hole in Rick and Morty's final episode of Season 7. One of my favourite episodes. Probably because I love mind-bending concepts. (As opposed to things that are complicated for no reason, but that's an article for another day.) Probably because I look back on my life with pride in how I've conquered many of my fears.
Basically the Fear Hole is a physical hole that, when you jump in,
"the Fear Hole manifests one's greatest fear, giving one the opportunity to conquer it and emerge fearless (and also have their picture displayed on the restroom's bulletin board)."
I very, very, very often relate the media I watch to myself. (Irritated an ex-girlfriend of mine, but that is also an article for another day.) So it's just natural for my mind to ask itself, what would I experience if I jumped in the Fear Hole? Would it be a life of being invalidated for my silly opinions? Would it be a life of never finding anyone who relates to me, no friends to build connections with? Would it be a life of being shunned because I'm an intense manifestion of faux pas?
Let's look at an example. A colleague of mine invited me to a Toastmasters event. He said it helps with self confidence. I responded "But I don't have a problem with self confidence." He agreed.
But that could be my perception of myself. Have I gas-lit myself into believing that? If I jumped in the Fear Hole, would it reveal to me that I do have a problem with self confidence?
That's not to say that the Toastmasters event wouldn't help me. I would still have struggles with giving a speech to a bunch of strangers, it would just be due to extrinsic empathy. I'd be more observant of my crowd, and if they don't seem to be enjoying my speech, I'd just fast-forward to the end of it.
I'm the type of person who, sure I want friends. But if you don't want to hang with me, I don't feel rejection. I don't feel sadness. I feel like I'm happier moving on doing something else. Something I personally like, rather than spending time with someone who doesn't want me. Or spending time with someone who wants me.
One thing that's bad about English is how many terms overlap in meaning. It makes it hard to distinguish things. Like, I'm fearful of spiders. Maybe the hole will just attack my arachnophobia. I'm also fearful of physical pain. But it's a different type of fear from my arachnophobia. I can't even look at a spider. Can't look at a photo of a spider without feeling like fleeing or fighting. Mostly fleeing. But I can look at pain. I can see someone else in pain and not feel like fleeing nor fighting. I can take pain bravely. I can't bravely take a spider because that's how arachnophobia works. But we use the same word "fear" in English to refer to both. And I hate that.
I fear doing a poor job at work. Again, different type of fear from spiders and pain.
Maybe it's a hierarchical category thing, fear is an umbrella term, and there are other terms designed for more specific categories of fear. But again, barely anybody cares, as far as I've encountered. And me using more specific terminology in social settings for clarity just results in the opposite of clarity, with some people enabling their fear of no knowing things by not asking what a word means. I say that out of empathy because I have that same fear. Some sort of stigma of pre-intelligence: "I should act like I know what they mean".
All of this ranting of mine is just me saying, I have no idea what I'd experience if I jumped in the Fear Hole.
That's why the concept of a Fear Hole is so appealing, and so much more effective than any therapist*. It's like the Fear Hole just knows you perfectly, and will respond honestly, and you can't exit the Fear Hole until you've faced your greatest fear. You can see here that the thought of the Fear Hole caters to my love of being lovingly corrected. Though I doubt I'd feel any sort of love from the Fear Hole. So this thought experiment mainly just caters to my intellectual, introspective curiosity.
But maybe that's what the Fear Hole will manifest to me. I jump in, and it doesn't trigger any fears in me. So then my fear would be that I jump in the Fear Hole, and I wouldn't know if I have no fears, or if I do have fears and the Fear Hole won't show them to me.
But I mean, there's lots of fears it can choose from. Just like the mind-bendingly meta-fear that Morty experiences when he jumps in (I don't want to spoil it). This fear of mine of the Fear Hole not "working" for me would be the perfect meta-fear for it to feed off me with. And if I'm honest, I'd prefer that over the many other fears I have of spiders, torture, being buried alive, or doing poorly at work. Not to give my haters any ideas. NOT TO GIVE THE FEAR HOLE ANY IDEAS.
In closing, I apologise to any readers who joined me on this painfully honest and cringey rollercoaster ride of a complicated, messed up self-analysis. But like I said earlier, this is the type of messed-up stupid things I think about. Honestly, I don't hate that I think this way, it's very entertaining, and leads me to ideas that I didn't know I wanted to have. And I wonder how much others think similarly. Or at least analyse themselves with as much overly complicated and confusing but satisfying methods. Not that some people would admit that for fear that admission would give their mind's complications more power. There you go, I did it again.
Now watch me link this article to more friends again, even after I told myself I'd stop doing so. What is this? Fear of not being listened to?! WHO AM I?! (Rest assured I am unironically laughing at myself right now as I type this.)