In the presence of the storm, thunderbolts, hurricane, rain, darkness, and the lions, which might be concealed but a few paces away, he felt disarmed and helpless.

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown

Do we really want to be rid of our resentments, our anger, our fear? Many of us cling to our fears, doubts, self-loathing or hatred because there is a certain distorted security in familiar pain. It seems safer to embrace what we know than to let go of it for fear of the unknown.
(Narcotics Anonymous Book/page 33)

I am afraid of reduction. After a lifetime's independence- yes, selfish independence- I am terrified of being reduced to childhood once more, to helplessness, to seas of confusion from which the cruel lucid intervals poke up like rock shoals. I don't want to sit in my chair and be fed, much less do I want to be handed over to medical professionals.

It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.

Only the unknown frightens men. But once a man has faced the unknown, that terror becomes the known.