Concrete Fear

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Not all fears are irrational. Like pain tells the body that it needs attention or stop that you idiot, fear acts as the emotional cue to fight or flight. It is a way to protect ourselves from danger and the possibility that the next step in the process could be injury and pain. When I was a small child, little fingers drawn to that hot stove, there was no fear of pain, for there was no experience with stoves. Mothers warning that it was hot meant nothing. What does hot mean? In later years, when sitting around a campfire, I used a long stick like a surrogate finger to poke at it, proving mastery over the hot thing. What other reason is there to stab at a fire? It needs no help from me to burn, other than adding the occasional log.
Over time fear is built through experience, if the incident has not killed you, in which case others benefit from your experience, even if you can’t. How do think people learned which plants, berries and mushrooms were poisonous and which were edible? Here son, try this berry, it’s delicious and probably won’t kill you, but we’ll see. Okay that’s a good one!
Cultural fears are passed on from generation to generation, as the experience of the culture catalogs what is dangerous, and you begin to trust that mother knows what to be afraid of, such as hot stoves. Even when scientific advancement negates the historical roots of fear, culture is slow to respond and still passes on its terrifying myths and fables, deeply rooted in our ancestry.
Of course there are irrational fears as well, such as the fear of public places (Agoraphobia), or shaking hands (Mysophobia), because of all those nasty, creepy crawly germs. There is even one called Gynophobia, which is the irrational fear of women. I am not sure that one is completely irrational. All have their roots in rational fears that have been blown out of proportion and enlarged by the psyche of the individual. These types of fear can be conquered, or at least subdued, according to the literature.
Now I am not sure of the exact name for my most notable fear, as a confluence of events were in play when the panic struck. In order to walk from one side of the wide freeway in front of my hotel to the store on the other side, the city planners spanned it with a concrete overpass. This is good planning, because trying to walk across all those lanes of traffic with Mexican drivers, (see MIS article 4) is a daunting and dangerous task. I have seen lots of people of all ages walking and even riding their bikes across the bridge with no apparent problems. It looked safe and easy enough from down below. Up I went then, in a sloping back and forth pattern to the top of the ramp and then the bridge itself. The ramp concept allows bikes to be rolled up or down from the bridge. While on the ramp I felt no anxiety. The first step past the ramp, onto the open concrete span, brought instant panic. A voice in my head shouted at me, “are you nuts, turn around, don’t walk on this thing!”
“But I have to get across,” I replied.
“All right, don’t I say I didn’t warn you though knucklehead.”
For a moment I did contemplate a retreat. The voice sounded reasonable. A little boy skipped past me without a care, and pride swelled up in me to squash the voice of reason. Pride goes before a fall after all. In this case a fall was quite possible. I looked at the railing that ran on both sides. From the ground they looked adequate. On the bridge they looked like a good trip point, only coming up about three feet from the surface.


“Who the heck is going to be saved by that,” I thought? Well, if I get down on my hands and knees and crawl like a snake, I’ll be lower than the railing and I won’t be able to see the rushing traffic below me either. I considered it.
Again, pride overrode logic and reason. Mr. Spock would be so ashamed, me letting my emotions rule over logic. Obviously the safest way for me to cross would be to crawl like a worm, inching forward ever so slowly. I should be across in two or three hours. That seems reasonable. I can take a taxi back to my hotel. A little old lady pushed past me, giving me a dubious glance that seemed to question my sanity.
“All right old lady, I’ll show you. Here I go then, walking, walking, panicking, panicking, more walking and almost there. Fight the urge to crawl; you can do it, just a little farther. No! Don’t look down, don’t look down, and do not jump over the rail to end your wretchedness. Oh great, a bike is coming up behind me. Move over just a little and let him pass and quick back to the middle, c’mon. I’m getting dizzy, head is spinning and the cars below are a cacophony of motion in two directions making me even more dizzy and sweat is running down my nose but I can’t wipe it off or I’ll lose my balance and then, it’s over. Thank God I’m alive! Alive I say! I made it across.”
More dubious looks from old ladies and children but I don’t care as I careen down the ramp to street level and the end of misery. I will never cross that thing again. I would rather dodge through speeding traffic, hopping on one foot all the way than traverse that concrete monster once more.
So what is the fear? Was it heights or concrete bridges or the speeding traffic below me that I was afraid of? Was it the fact that my body recognizes my poor balance, and does not like to go places where balance is required? I have been told before that I am quite unbalanced, but I do not think they mean the same thing. In any case, whatever the fear, it is something I cannot conquer or subdue, so I will take a taxi from one side of the street to the other. The cost is worth it.

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