The safety in horror

Hello again to you, and goodbye again to October.

My Japanese horror quest has been going well, though admittedly a bit behind schedule. It's ironic that I started last month's letter talking about how one can't plan too strictly, only to end it with ambitiously laid plans. It's just a part of who I am: I always bounce back after a setback, excitedly eyeing more than I can manage.

I recently described my ambitions as being something like a bread: they have to rise in the oven before eventually settling to where they were meant to be. In this case, I get to finish up my adventures with the Ring, Grudge, and Fatal Frame worlds alongside the desaturating trees and gathering crows of November—Crowvember?—which sounds perfectly fitting to me.

But why have I come to like horror at all, when there are plenty of real things to be afraid of?

I'm usually pretty good at freestyling answers to things like this after a couple hundred podcast episodes and a life of ravenous curiosity, but when my French tutor wanted me to write out an answer for practice, I had no ideas at all.

The universe really timed that question well for me, so I think I have my answers now, even more than I intended to. It seems only right that I share them with you, in the spirit of Halloween.

If you're not so into the scarier parts of the season, I'll give you two small facts from one of my childhood Halloweens at the end of this, but I don't want to derail myself, so they'll have to wait their turn.

The first thing that draws me to horror, particularly ghostly horror, is easy to explain, because it doesn't really involve fear. Horror allows me to explore in the same way that any other fiction might.

I find the idea of exploring a world with spirits and other folkloric beings fascinating, but I don't usually get to see those hanging around. Except the Shadow Boy, but I think he's still in Denver, and we don't talk about him.

Even if I could, most horror settings wouldn't be very friendly for exploring purposes.

The second idea I have is that horror might work as something of a fear vaccine, both to the specific fears in question and to fear itself.

This is essentially just exposure therapy, which I definitely know something about, considering it's part of the gold standard for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder. In fact, does this mean that I might be able to follow horror down a path that leads to increased comfort when trying to treat the difficulties living in my brain? That'd be nice.

But OCD aside, exposure therapy clearly works as a concept in general: in the months leading up to my first out-of-state move to a 19th floor apartment in Colorado, I knew my fear of heights was going to become a problem, so I regularly went to a local mall to look down from the second floor railing.

This worked, as you can probably tell from the photo I've been using for the last few years. My legs still remembered my fear as I stood at the edge of a cliffside to take photos, but my mind was fine. I think it's interesting that my mind and body disagree there—even within this last year, I have to say that Fall is the single scariest movie I've ever watched, as far as my body is concerned. My hands would not stop sweating the entire time, which would certainly not be helpful if I were trying to climb any towers myself.

The final reason is the least fun, but perhaps the most useful. My experiences with OCD have taught me that fear is a very powerful attention seeker. Once I've locked into one, even if it's nonsense, and I know it, I simply cannot let it go. A fearful mind is less wont to wander.

Earlier this month, I was reminded of this when, within a span of three days, I learned that cancer is attacking both sides of my family at once.

This is obviously not enjoyable to think about, and I found myself slipping into a series of AI doom videos online. This is not normally how I spend my time, but it felt so easy to lose myself in them that I gladly let it happen.

I think intentional horror content is a more rewarding use of my time than letting the algorithms lead my brain down a breadcrumb path, so I'm very thankful that I had my horror quest in mind already for the rest of the month. I spent October courting fear.

Now, I know these last few ideas are not nearly as fun as candy corn and Jack-o'-lanterns, so let's distract from these fears with something lighter instead.

My first fact is that, as a young child, I once decided to dress up as a stop sign for Halloween. I imagine this was unideal for anyone driving around that night, but kids are weird, and I was no exception.

My second fact is that this was my second choice. We didn't know how to make my first, which was, for reasons I'm sure felt very compelling at the time, a slice of bologna.

Anyway, I'm certainly not the first person to think about these things, though I might be the first person to want to dress up as bologna, but, I'm a novice in the spooky arts. How do you feel about horror? If you're drawn to it as well, why do you think that is? Or would you rather cover your eyes, only peaking between fingers until you can switch over to see if Linus will meet the Great Pumpkin this year? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Keep blooming, and happy Halloween.

Martin

In case we missed each other on the algorithmic seas, here are the other things I’ve been sharing this month:

By the way, I highly recommend carving your own digital pumpkin in Adamgryu's Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival: this is the third year for one of my friend groups, and it's a very rewarding tradition.

You can find my pumpkin from this year on a hill on the the boring world server.

Such a simple game concept providing such a disproportionate amount of joy is a perfect example of why I still expect to see good things from humanity.