The Fear

Earlier this week on my commute home, I heard a discussion on NPR (that's right, I'm a pathological NPR listener) about the Shanghai Tower, currently the second tallest building in the world.  An engineer was describing the counterweight system used to keep the super tall structure for wobbling too much - essentially a thousand ton hunk of metal that follows instructions from computerized sensors that leans into the direction of the wind to reduce swaying.  Apparently in buildings this tall, without such a system, people are prone to getting motion sickness on the upper floors are prone to motion sickness.

Holy crap.

There is a lot you could say about this engineering masterpiece, but what I couldn't get out of my head this ridiculous contradiction - that despite the fact that I've been skydiving, the idea of being safely tucked away on one of the upper floors of the Shanghai Tower is gut-wrenchingly terrifying for me.  I am quite sure this fear is irrational, that it defies probabilities.  But it's there, all the same.

As I thought more about it, I realized that  the difference between these two scenarios - skydiving versus being in a tall building - turns on a very fundamental bifurcation in human personality. The skydiver is prepared to face an absurdly dangerous situation all alone. She or he jumps out into nothing and saves herself with her own willpower when she decides to pull the ripcord. A person standing in a tall building has invested their faith in large institutions that extend well beyond themselves. They believe that the architects who designed the buildings considered how to keep the building from falling down, that the safety of the structure has been verified, that emergency plans are in place.

So then, the skydiver is afraid to put faith in institutions, and the building dweller is afraid to trust themselves.

What are you afraid of?