Fear, like pain or smelly garbage, is a good thing. They tell you that you should pay attention to something. With pain, it's immediate: stop hitting yourself! The smelly garbage . . . take that out soon, not immediately but . . . soon. Fear is something best dealt with at a distance because it's telling you that you're psychologically troubled. It's not as direct a problem as the other two but it shouldn't be ignored. Try to figure out why you're reacting that way - really reacting that way - and deal.

The human need to turn phenomena into stories is the liar. It enforces "good narrative" even when that doesn't match facts. It really likes extremes of good and evil and superheroes and colossal monsters and other things that don't seem so real if we take away the narrative. But we're not only these pattern-seeking humans, we crave narrative. We seek out those lies and hold them close to us. Because the lies comfort us.