Every time I get on an airplane, I make sure I get the window seat. Part of it is the claustrophobic fear that engulfs me even at ground level, and the other because of the poetic necessity to have a view while I write nonsense in my nonsensical journal. I fly about 10-12 times a year and have found the greatest inspiration in elevation. Ironically, I bask in the immensity of being in the air and watching the world get smaller below, while having an irrational phobia of heights. It makes me think. Here I am having the time of my life writing, and looking at clouds. When in reality, my legs became wobbly the minute I was about to zip line, sending me to a state of almost fainting from the fear.
It made me think about the psychological irony and somewhat humor of being suspended hundreds of feet in the sky when I can't even go up the electric stairs of shopping malls without feeling like my legs are going to give out. I feel powerful in a tiny window seat, yet Six Flags sees me getting on rides that aren't as high (so basically 2 or 3). It's funny to see how psychology works. How would I categorize this? I don't know. But the fact is there. Am I less scared of height in an airplane because I am enclosed in a multi-ton structure? But what if the plane were to fall? How is it that one can justify their phobia of given circumstances? Isn't it technically the same thing? Is a phobia, then, relative? How is it that we people decide to what extent a phobia can come to life within our twisted brains? Especially, in a fear that truly has no roots in it?
I know people who are scared of Furbies, others cannot stand a given song, and my brother will freak out if I give him food in a given green Winnie the Pooh plate. The thing is, out of these people, none of them can pinpoint or know of any given cause to these phobias, they simply came to the realization that it existed. What is it then that occurs in our brains or personalities that cause something to become so anxiety inflicting? What do you name such conditions that go beyond Freudian or Jungian possibilities?
I know someone who is scared of oranges. She would shriek whenever someone put an orange on her desk at school. I found it funny, but to her, that orange was the equivalent of a snake on my desk. Is it simply a matter of ridiculous happenings, or a response from our brain trying to tell us something?
