Text/Ma Boyong

My PE teacher once said in math class that the best way to overcome your fear of the supernatural is not to run away, but to keep thinking and asking yourself questions.

The first question is to ask yourself: What are you afraid of?

Afraid of ghosts? Very good, so please go ahead and ask, what exactly are you afraid of? Is it its green-faced fangs? Or is it the fear that it could take your life? Or is it simply the uncertainty of the unknown ahead of the dark hallway?

Some people are afraid of Sadako's imagery crawling out of the TV, and some people are afraid of the bloody fangs of zombies. Once you have the answer in mind, you might as well ask yourself, why are you afraid of zombie fangs? What exactly is the part of the tooth that you are afraid of, which is the molar? Canines or wisdom teeth? Think about it a little further, zombies also have wisdom teeth? Will they hurt too? Do you also chase the living while covering your cheeks and crying?

If you're scared of Sadako, you can also continue to ask yourself: How did Sadako crawl out of the TV? Does it have anything to do with the channel? Does it have anything to do with the standard? Will she still come out after the TV is turned off? If you put the TV in a high place, will she fall off? If she puts the TV against the wall, will she hit her head?

If you're afraid of the darkness of the corridor, you can continue to ask yourself: What is the hallway made of? Are you afraid of storing the walls while they are plastering, or waiting until they are scraped white? When workers scratch white, do they brush latex paint, where do you buy it? Did the renovation team buy it themselves or did the owner buy it himself? What are you afraid of, do you bother these decoration materials? Does it absorb formaldehyde?

The more questions you ask, the more connected you will find to reality, and the less fearful you will be. Fear comes from the unknown, and many times the unknown is just because we are too panicked to forget to think. Thinking doesn't mean finding the right answer, it just gets you into the rhythm of rational thinking.

When reason comes into play, many of the terrible images are dissolved by a great deal of detail about reality, and they become less fearful. The grimace of the computer, when you think that it might be killed by antivirus software, is not scary. If this grimace still prevents you from going to Taobao, maybe you will get angry and kill it in turn.

The unknown in the depths of the corridor I mentioned just now comes from a real-life case. A friend of mine bought a new house to renovate, but because she was too busy with work, she had time to check the progress of the renovation after work every time, basically after dark. Her house is so new that none of the surrounding residents have moved in, and at night there are no lights, and the whole neighborhood is very quiet.

She had to park her car in an empty semi-finished underground parking lot and walk through a hallway full of wooden racks and renovation waste to get into the elevator. The elevator is also blocked by bells and whistles of wooden slats, like a sealed wooden window in a zombie movie. If you look closely, you can see your own twisted reflection through the inside of the elevator in the gap between the wooden bars. She was very scared of this road, and she was so scared every time she walked.

I told her about this method, and every time she walked this path, she desperately thought about the significance of various scenes for decoration. When you see the undulating wooden frame, you can ask yourself about the height of the floor; When you see decoration garbage, you can ask yourself if the decoration team has secretly bought inferior brands; When you see the wooden strips in the elevator, think about how much it will cost to repair the metal mirror after it is scratched; See the dark hallway and remind yourself how to wire and set up floor lights.

Through this way of thinking, she has succeeded in becoming a simple person with decoration anxiety syndrome, and she is no longer dissatisfied and fearful.