On the fear of looming odds
I worry too much.
Published on 3rd September 2026
I write this as I’m on a plane. Whenever I have a flight planned, I, just like many like me, fear the coming moment of the flight. I wake up in the night in cold sweats, search for statistics of the plane that I will travel in, its model, the shared terrors of others online, or their words of tranquility. I try desperately to find something that will appease my inner wailing. Frustratingly, the appeasement never comes, not before the end of the trip. It is only conquered by seeing it through.
It is odd to me, this fear. I tell to myself something I already know. That it is statistically safe, that I’ve passed through this many times and here I am, that it doesn’t matter what I feel, I should just let the moment pass through me. Our brains are tricky devils, as what I think doesn’t seem to be what I feel, and the infighting prevails.
Of course, this is not tied only to air travel. My mind is a simulator of tragedies, calculating all the ways my doom may strike soon. Car crashes on a rainy road, a disease that comes swiftly but surely, my body failing on me, betraying me just as my own mind does. As I agonize over my life ceasing, I cease to live. Will I ever be able to convince my flesh that I cannot be stuck in a prison of my own making? That it’s not the inevitable I should fear, but fear itself that I should evade?
I write this as I’m trying to.