FOCUS Magazine | Dec. 2023

Staff Editors-in-Chief Dawson Yao Linyang Lee Writers Ben Adams Noah Cathey Zack Goforth Nolan Marcus Grayson Redmond Will Clifford Matthew Hofmann Akash Manickam Arjun Poi Hilton Sampson Joseph Sun Neil Yepuri Eric Yi Tejas Allada Josh Goforth Christopher Guffey Ronit Kongara Wiliam Kozoman Doan Nguyen Christian Warner Kayden Zhong Adviser Jenny Dial Creech

6 Personal Fears Members of the community detail their unique fears, from balloons and latex to an existential dread.

10 Atychiophobia The fear that nothing you’re doing is right, and that eventually everything you do will fail.

14 Portraying Fear How do artists, from filmmakers to painters to storytellers, scare people?

16 Loving Horror

How do horror movie directors provide such frightening experiences for the viewer, and why do we watch them?

18 In the Moment

What goes through someone’s mind when they come face to face with terror.

22 Adrenaline

The “fight or flight” human instinct showcased in the situation where it matters most.

24 Why can’t I speak?

What happens when someone can’t speak their mind in public?

26 Fears from Death The fears that come before, during, and after the death of a loved one.

28 Editorial

A member on staff shares his deepest fear, and how he’s tried to tackle it.

Cover Illustration: Josh Goforth Focus, a magazine supplement to The ReMarker covering a single topic, is a student publication of St. Mark’s School of Texas, 10600 Preston Road, Dallas, Texas, 75230.

30 Frivolous Fears

Conversations with people who are terrified by everyday things.

32 Conquering Fears How do we tackle and overcome our fears?

fear.

PHOTO / CREATIVE COMMONS

There is so much to fear.

Though there are so many things that bring us pure joy and fulfillment, there are also so many things that scare us.

Shake us to our cores.

Force us to relive our darkest moments.

Seem impossible to overcome.

And no matter who we are, we can’t run from it. Fear will always plague us, eating at our minds and bodies until we are, both literally and metaphorically, curled up into fetal positions, with nowhere to escape to.

This magazine unravels fear. Demystifies it. So that we might just understand what drives it, how we can deal with it, and how we can drive it out.

Because when we do, we’ll see that it was nothing all along. And when we take that step back, we’ll see that the only thing we really had to fear, was fear itself.

Dawson Yao and Linyang Lee Editors-in-Chief

Existential Dread

by Noah Cathey

A young Lauren Logan prepares to attend her first funeral.

As she walks down the center aisle, she’s met by the open casket of her grandmother. A woman, once lively and jovial, now lays still, in front of family and friends.

Her body will soon be placed in a mausoleum, where she is just one amongst hundreds of bodies. The stone label will soon erode. Her casket will decay. And those who once knew and loved her will eventually perish as well, and her existence will fade to naught. Lauren Logan’s fear is that she will suffer the same fate as her grandmother.

Logan, a middle school math instructor, grows wary when thinking about the minuteness of her life in comparison to all of world history. She fears the future where, because she is no longer here, no one is obliged to remember or think of her everyday.

“When I really start to think about death, I start to wonder, ‘Is life worth it?’” Logan said. “Obviously, I want to be here to treat people right, lead a good life, things like that. But beyond that, is it worth it if we’re all just going to wind up in a box that in millions of years is going to blow up?”

This fear stems from her first glimpse of life remembrance after death: her grandmother’s funeral. Because the family buried Logan’s grandmother in a mausoleum, she was able to look at hundreds of bodies lying against the same wall.

6 | Personal Fears

All people who once had walking and talking bodies, now only exist as mere collections of bones and flesh at best. At worst, names that are no longer in human memories. Logan’s fear morphed from a fear of death to one of no remembrance of her existence.

“I can’t get that picture out of my head,” Logan said. “One time, you see your grandma living and happy. The next time you see her laying in the coffin. And then I watched them put the coffin into a wall. So then I started thinking, ‘Now her body is in there for life?

Is that wall always going to be there?’”

A fear that used to be only prevalent in funerals and hospitals slowly seeped into other parts of Logan’s life. She experienced her fear face to face in her own home more often. Long sleepless nights became the breeding grounds for thoughts of life after her death.

“It really overwhelms me when I can’t sleep at night,” Logan said.

“Not always, but it often consumes my whole mind. If I can’t sleep and somehow get to thinking about it, I’ll be up for hours.”

This experience developed her fear of having no trace of existence, but it also changed her outlook on life in a positive way. She uses teaching to focus on the personal thing - connections with and impacts on people. Those are the things that she hopes will remain, even when she isn’t here anymore.

“I used to question what life was all about,’” Logan said. “Now, I

S

actually go out of my way to have good relationships with people. Because that’s what matters. Why do we need the name brand and materialistic things? Yes, I love shopping, but I’m not going to go out of my way to get the designer outfit because that means nothing in the grand scheme of things. It’s the relationships I have with people that are going to get me remembered.”

A fightning chance

by Joseph Sun ix on six. The stakes were high. On his team were alltime greats worshiped by many around the world. A couple of months ago this would have been a fever dream. A couple of minutes from now it’s his worst nightmare.

The first minute in, he was killed by surprise. The enemies caught him off guard. Within the next twenty minutes, he would get killed again and again, racking up ten deaths.

His opponents were mocking him. Once inspirational figures he looked up to now were calling him names and telling him to quit the game in the team chat.

Spearheading a multibillion-dollar industry, League of Legends took the gaming community by storm, generating millions of dollars for the e-sports scene.

For the top 0.01% of players, however, League of Legends offers them the chance to make money. A possibility for a career that offers fame and riches they could only dream of.

And after first playing a couple of matches, senior Warner Hartnett felt this was his perfect opportunity for success.

Fearing the possibility of being unsuccessful after college, Hartnett has tried many things to make money.

From day trading to League of Legends, Hartnett built many experiences to quench his uncertainty.

“There’s not a lot I can do now, since I’m so young, especially with school,” Hartnett said. “I started League [of Legends] initially for fun.

But then eventually, I knew I could actually make money off this.”

Realizing his talent for mechanical skills and instant decision-making in the game, Hartnett started treating League of Legends as work, grinding to reach the peak ranks in hopes of going pro.

“It’s brutal and it’s not a hobby anymore,” Hartnett said. “Now it’s income-producing.”

Most Esports teams pay well, with the best contracts offering over five million a year. However, his success in League of Legends all rides on one number: his rank.

While being in the top 0.01% in North America, Hartnett was pressured to maintain his rank by the influx of promising players competing to achieve higher ranks.

“I feel a constant fear of failure when I’m playing,” Hartnett said. “Not only not only do I fear losing the rank points, but I also have a fear of performing badly because at higher ranks you’re gonna see those same people many times.”

Similar to Hartnett, thousands of people are also contending for higher ranks in hopes of being recruited into an esports team. But he’s still trying for it.

“Since my goal is to make a lot of money playing the game, I do have a lot of stress and fear that I won’t be able to succeed,” Hartnett said.

“It’s weird when something that was designed to be fun is taken to a higher level, but it is also weird that it’s accessible for me. It’s not a pipe dream for me to go do it because I am close.”

Throughout his endless grind of rank points and the occasional toxic teammate, Hartnett learned a valuable lesson.

It’s the perseverance to not give up when it’s the 10th game of the day and I have a bad matchup,” Hartnett said. “It’s mental warfare.”

Ultimately, Hartnett developed a switch between his life and his life in League of Legends. No matter what goes on in the game that day, he can always take his headset off, and go about being himself.

7

Airborne anxiety

by Hilton Sampson

Thrilled to enjoy a summer vacation at her family’s lake house, English instructor Dr. GayMarie Vaughan and her husband took their kids to a neighborhood burger joint to kick start a relaxing weekend.

But as soon as Vaughan walked through the door, a foreboding figure across the restaurant caught her eye.

To Vaughan’s dismay, her kids, filled with excitement, darted across the room toward the man.

Vaughan carefully followed, growing more nervous with each step.

When she reached the man, Vaughan was met with a friendly smile.

Would you like a balloon?

The man was a balloon artist, crafting crowns and animals for kids to enjoy.

I’m sorry, I’m scared of balloons.

Vaughan saw the man’s expression grow into a curious stare. She knew he had to be thinking, “Are you crazy?”

Vaughan can only describe her anxiety as a fear of the balloon’s potential popping.

“When the popping goes off,” Vaughan said, “I usually shout something I would maybe be embarrassed to shout in public because it’s instinctive. It’s terrible. It’s ridiculous.”

This unusual fear has been with Vaughan since highschool.

“I was a cheerleader,” Vaughan said, “and I just remember having to catch my breath because I was terrified. I didn’t know if they would pop near me.”

Fortunately, Vaughan gained exemption from her cheerleading responsibilities of inflating balloons for events and pep rallies, so her fear was minimized in high school. But moving forward and having kids of her own, it grew increasingly difficult for Vaughan to manage her intolerance for balloons.

Having birthday parties and family gatherings without balloons may have been unusual for Vaughan’s family members, but she is glad they respect her wishes to stay as far away from balloons as possible.

Here on campus, while balloons are uncommon, they do occasionally appear.

“There have been pep rallies where I’ve had to walk out because there were too many balloons,” Vaughan said.

“The [football] players will sit on them, so I just stand pretty far away.”

8 | Frivolous Fears

A couple of years ago, a senior prank left the halls of Centennial filled with balloons - a nightmare for Vaughan.

“I walked in the building, and you could not miss them,” Vaughan said. “I was trying to figure out, ‘How am I going to get up to my office and walk through a sea of balloons?’”

Vaughan took a deep breath and focused on the task at hand: overcoming her fear.

“They’re not going to hurt me,” Vaughan said. “Nobody’s ever been attacked by a balloon, right?”

But though Vaughan successfully navigated her way through the building and made it to her office that day, she is still not completely past her fear.

Vaughan, however, has discovered she is not afraid of mylar balloons, only the more common latex ones.

This perplexity only complicates Vaughan’s understanding of her own phobia, which she truly cannot understand.

“I’m not afraid of other things that pop,” Vaughan said. “It’s not like I’m afraid of firecrackers and those are big and loud. I’m not afraid of anything else like that. It makes no sense.”

But stationary balloon arches, on the other hand, which she might see at events as the backdrop for photos, fill Vaughan with anxiety.

“Those are scary,” Vaughan said. “You’re so close to them. They could explode. I realize how completely ridiculous this sounds. I’m typically a very rational, reasoned person, and I don’t know why this particular thing got me the way it did, but it did.”

This fear of balloons, known as globophobia, is estimated to haunt roughly seven percent of the population, according to CPD Online.

But Vaughan is yet to find someone who shares the phobia. Moving forward, while Vaughan is hopeful to avoid balloons in the future, if she does encounter them, she hopes to keep her anxiety at bay.

“I don’t want my silly irrational fear to impact somebody else,” Vaughan said. “The most important thing is that I just have to realize that it’s irrational.”

A dread of

dreaming

by Joseph Sun

Since the school year started, he couldn’t But knowing he can often confuse his dreams and his real life, he built a habit of checking his schedule comsleep.

There was just too much. A member of many clubs and organizations, junior Andrew Jin just could not catch a break.

Every day is filled with something – various meetings, student council during lunch, debate tournaments on the weekends – and he’s been constantly rushing here and there.

On top of extracurriculars, Jin has to maintain grades, friends, and sports: the usual experience for most students.

For many students, sleep is their respite.

But where his peers find comfort, Jin finds hesitation.

“I sleep very lightly,” Jin said. “I don’t really like how it’s hard to sometimes tell between a dream and what actually happened because the dream is so vivid.”

Jin anticipates what will happen the next day in his dreams, thinking he’s completing tasks.

“One time I [was going to have] a meeting for my club Beacon Hill with the school administrators,” Jin said, “and I dreamt that I changed this meeting to the day after.”

pulsively.

“I thought ‘You know what? I think it’s tomorrow. But hypothetically speaking, what if I actually had the meeting?’ So I checked online,” Jin said.

And sure enough, he had not rescheduled the meeting.

“With 30 minutes right before the meeting, I realized it was [that same day],” Jin said. “I had to make a slideshow and it would have been highly tragic if I never checked.”

For Jin, this problem stems from his limited sleep caused by school.

“Because I didn’t really do anything over the summer, I didn’t dream about much,” Jin said. “But then, once I got started this year with a lack of sleep, the dreams started.”

With all the school work piling up, Jin has only been able to get around five hours of sleep every night. In the mornings, sometimes he isn’t even sure if he turned in the essay he had due last night.

“It’s just a lot of unnecessary anxiety,” Jin said. “When I wake up, I sprint downstairs, seeing how much work there is.”

And it’s not just anxiety that Jin is afraid of every morning.

“I’m just worried that one day, I’ll be heading to an interview,” Jin said. “Then sleep, then imagine I’ve already gone to the interview, and then miss out on a job at Google or something, which is kind of irrational, but I just don’t like the idea that that can happen.”

Although seemingly improbable, Jin still knows something worse will happen. “ I think it’s a very straightforward fear because the way it causes harm is very direct,” Jin said. “Because I think the stuff that you interact with more, the fears that are closer to your everyday life, are more scary than stuff that might be far out.”

ABOVE THE CLOUDS, dreams and balloons rise together to create a paradise for some, and nightmares for others.

GRAPHIC / DAWSON YAO

9

A Fear of

Failure

by Arjun Poi, Neil Yepuri

Determination is a good thing. The ability to push through challenges, especially those involving other individuals, is respected.

Competition, whether it be against many or a few, can force a mindset where one needs to succeed, with no other viable options or backup plans.

So, when an outcome isn’t expected, or isn’t the desired outcome, that lack of success can seem painful, depressing, or even terrifying.

Those emotions all stem from the competitive fear of failure — the idea that one must perform well, for risk of losing something extremely important to them, such as opportunity. That PHOTO / COURTESY ETHAN ZHANG

fear of failure can then lead to significant internalized pressure to perform. And, sometimes, that pressure to perform is overwhelming.

From there, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Despite what can be years of practice, that pressure and anxiety of not wanting to screw up can be the sole reason that causes someone to fail.

Dr. Mary Bonsu, though, notes that a widespread fear of failure is not something most people are born with. It’s not like most primal fears that stem from our cavemen ancestors. It’s distinct from a fear of the night and the dark, which was when predators had the biggest advantage. Nor is it like a fear of life-threatening situations like facing cliffs, heights or hearing the sound of a lion’s roar. Instead, Bonsu believes that outside influences plant the first seeds of this kind of unique fear.

“Failure has been a message that has been externally given to kids, probably at a younger age, so by the time they get to be adolescents in [high school], they’ve internalized that fear,” Bonsu said. “Some kids are just born perfectionists. They just hate failure – they’re wired that way. But for the most part, these messages [about avoiding failure] come externally and then people internalize them.”

And, junior Ethan Zhang’s desire to succeed in the complex world of math competitions is evidence of these internalized messages.

“To me, it’s something to show for all the hard work I do,” Zhang said. “I do math problems, and I get better at math. That part’s fun.”

But, Zhang wants something real and tangible, which showcases his accomplishments and his ability. The American Mathematics Competition (AMC), a national math competition taken by over 300,000 students, does exactly that.

When Zhang took the test as a sophomore, he didn’t do as well as he’d hoped for, and he attributed it to not starting to study soon enough.

For a long time, he couldn’t forgive himself for his mistake.

“It was a really weird time because I was constantly thinking to myself every day, ‘You’re in the mud. You’re in the mud. You’re in the mud,’” Zhang said. “Every single day, I would wake up and think, ‘You’re in the mud.’” Even when I went skiing that year, I couldn’t concentrate when I was supposed to be having fun. Every time we got on a chairlift, my brain would just

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT Zhang studied for the AMC for almost a year before he finally took the test this November.

Atychiphobia 10 | Fear of Failure

in the words of Marksmen

revert to thinking, for lack of better phrase, ‘You’re in the mud. Why are you having fun?’”

So, inspired by his past failures, Zhang decided that he wasn’t going to let a lack of effort stop him from succeeding again.

“I told myself, ‘Okay, you’re going to study insanely hard. You’re going to work every day on this and then next year, you can do so much better,’” Zhang said. “And that’s what I did this entire year.”

But Bonsu advises against attaching one’s identity and self-worth to their success in competitions, believing it to be dangerous: it attaches a need for success to something that is very hard to change - oneself.

“Once we anchor our fears to these big things that we can’t change, like parental attachment, personal identity, or the past, those fears are very hard to deal with,” Bonsu said.

“It’s hard to rewire what’s hardwired, right?”

For the better part of a year, Zhang did countless problem sets and practice tests, studying in every possible way he could.

In the days leading up to the test, Zhang hyped himself up. He reassured himself, repeating ‘You worked so hard’ and ‘You are ready for this’ in his mind.

But when he started taking the actual exam, he started to get in his head. Those reassurances transformed into doubtful thoughts like, ‘You worked this hard for a year and still can’t do this’ and ‘You’re so dumb.’

For most people taking the AMC, their goal is to get a score high enough to be able to qualify to take the next test, the American Invitational Mathematics Examination, or the AIME. Zhang, however, after studying for so long, had set a personal goal of an even higher score.

“I’m pretty sure I still qualified for the AIME, which is the next level, but it’s just not as good as I wanted to do,” Zhang said.

Because of his results, Zhang has had mixed feelings about his efforts and the test.

“Looking back on it, I’m happy mainly because I’ve learned so much math and have gotten so much better at it over the past year,” Zhang said. “But in the end, I’m also frustrated that I don’t have anything to show for it right now.”

Junior Jediel Sarfo, too, has experienced the fear of potentially failing after preparing for an audition after practicing the violin

“

I have a fear of not measuring up to the success of my classmates who are obviously talented at a place like St. Mark’s. Growing up in an Asian household where I’m expected to perform and do my best, it’s not just in academics, but it’s also in sports and arts.

PHOTO / COURTESY JEDIEL SARFO THE BIG MOMENT After practicing for months, Sarfo performs a solo backed by the Greater North Texas Youth Orchestra.

Sarfo won a concert competition for his performance.

for months.

“Everybody has to deal with it,” Sarfo said. “When you invest so much time into something and you’re not sure that you’re going to get the outcome that you’re looking for, it’s scary to know that all that time and effort could ultimately end up being wasted.”

Bonsu, however, believes that failure isn’t an absolute negative, noting that there are positive aspects to the phenomenon.

Some of these include the significant potential to grow as a person due to failure, because failure often forces one to adapt to and overcome a more challenging situation than before.

“Think about the inventors: Einstein, Edison, Jefferson, Franklin - they had tons and tons of failure behind their one crowning achievement,” Bonsu said.

But even if someone doesn’t end up succeeding like Einstein or Edison, failing while giving it your all is still okay. Bonsu even encourages people to lean into failure.

“You should go towards failure; failure teaches you things, and failure is an educator,” Bonsu said. “How will you learn if you don’t fail? You can only get better by moving towards failure, and not avoiding it.”

“

I could probably be the most successful person that came off my family. Like by a long shot. So not being able to fulfill that would suck pretty bad.

– Senior Caleb Maddox

“

Playing the violin, when you’re preparing for a concert or a competition, you work really hard on your piece for half a year or at least a few months. You always have that fear of messing up at that critical point in time.

– Junior Daniel Sun

– Senior Zachary Bashour

11

Fear into

Inspiration

by Doan Nguyen, Arjun Poi

MOTIVATION Last year, Dilworth gave a “This I Believe” Talk, where he made people find their “Why.”

12 | Fear of Failure

Head strength and conditioning coach Kevin Dilworth had qualified for the American Olympic trials.

The long jump team took the top three performers, and he knew he was the best. Dilworth was supposed to be the best. But, on that day, he didn’t qualify for the Olympics.

Could’ve been nerves, or maybe he didn’t warm up enough, but it doesn’t matter. Now, Dilworth doesn’t look back to make excuses, just ahead for the next step.

Since then, he wakes up with a perfect mindset.

Brushing his teeth — he’s a winner. Making breakfast — winner. In his office, weight room, out on the track — his one-track mind is focused on one thing.

Winning.

For all this talk about winning, one might think he never makes mistakes. But that’s not true. After all, he’s human. But it’s what he does with those mistakes that matters more than anything. “​​I am going to fail,” Dilworth said. “But I am learning from failing because there’s a lesson at that level, and I have to make sure that I take all the notes on that lesson. So when I go to the next tier, I don’t revisit. I get better. Fear cannot exist unless I hang on to it, and I hang on to it by staying in that mindset.”

To Dilworth, failure isn’t anything special. It’s not a hindrance or a mistake. In reality, failure is just that one thing lingering at the back of his head.

“All failure is, is a word,” Dilworth said. “And that one word can sabotage everything. It just plays games with you.”

To that end, failure is part of a mindset. Instead, Dilworth chooses to focus on giving whatever he’s working on his all.

“My ‘trying’ is different,” Dilworth said. “To try can

mean to just keep checking the box. My version is going in it every time, with everything I have. Giving in and fully committing to it; that’s trying.”

Despite all of this, he hasn’t completely defeated failure. Failure never goes away. It’s always a back-and-forth: one challenge after the other. One shouldn’t become comfortable with failure, but failure can and should be used to grow. “[Failure has] given me inspiration and given me life because every day I aim to win,” Dilworth said. “If I miss something the first time, I will not allow failure to sink in. I can tell you this much: if I get another opportunity at it, it’s already done.”

Dilworth believes failure is inevitable and is a step in the process of success. Instead of staying in a onetrack, inflexible complex, he feels that one must break down in order to evolve.

“In order for the caterpillar to become the butterfly, he has to go through a transformation process,” Dilworth said. “He would think that being in the cocoon is a failure because now his body is now worn and torn down. Not understanding that those things that tore him down are about to build him up, so he can elevate and take off and see all the places that he used to grovel at where he was on the ground.”

Life is always going to be full of times of trouble.

But that doesn’t mean that someone who’s failing isn’t going to succeed. Success is a time-consuming process that requires patience and perseverance.

Every morning, while pushing himself until exhaustion, Dilworth reads the words plastered onto the wall of the weight room and embraces the failure: “I’m not bad. I’m not terrible. I’m not a failure. I’m a winner: a champion.”

PHOTO / NOAH CATHEY

13

H

Creating Fear In the Arts

by Will Clifford, Ronit Kongara

ands shaking. Mind racing. Stomach dropping like a bottomless pit.

The feeling of terror might sound stressful and intense, but it’s still a feeling some people chase.

For fans of horror movies, ominous dark music and ghost stories, the emotional rush is part of the appeal.

But by experiencing fear through a screen, script or sound recording, the

audience knows they are in no imminent physical danger. This poses a challenge for those who create scary content. They must think of unique ways to terrify people so they feel like they are in danger, without actually harming them.

To make the viewer’s of the upcoming horror movie The Beldham feel unsafe in their own home, direcBEDLAM Angela GulnerScheibmeir's upcoming horror movie The Beldham is a psychological horror film, designed to unsettle an audience using mental, emotional and psychological fiction.

PHOTO / COURTESY ANGELA GULNER-SCHEIBMEIR BRUSH STROKES Senior Anderson Sellinger’s “Tank!” uses dark themes to instill fear into the viewer.

PHOTO / COURTESY ANDERSON SELLINGER

14 | Portraying Fear

tor and writer Angela Gulner-Scheibmeir intentionally scripted the main character’s body so it rebelled against her.

“I wanted her to not be in control of her own body to amp up the feeling of not being safe, no matter where she went,” Gulner-Scheibmeir said. “I wanted to incorporate that in the movie along with a psychological fear and a slow burn of dread and holding tension.”

Although the typical audience for horror movies used to be predominantly young men, in recent years the demographic has shifted. As a result, writers and directors have started to shift their writing to attract a wider audience.

“We’ve seen a huge surge of women being really interested in horror films,” Gulner-Scheibmeir said. “For The Beldham, I was looking at targeting a more female demographic, and even trying to get an even older demographic, like trying to loop in some of the boomers. People my parents’ age don’t tend to watch horror movies, but the film is dealing with issues that touch a lot of people between the ages of 40 and 60.”

And images alone can strike fear into the viewer, but when it’s paired with an eerie soundtrack, the consumer has to cope with multiple different things trying to scare them simultaneously. In The Summoned, the viewer experiences a growing dis-ease that is paired up with music that gets more intense as the plot develops.

“I intended to write the script and shoot the movie to highlight distrust and paranoia throughout the film,” Angela Gulner-Scheibmeir said. “I wanted to play with the idea of psychological fear and a slow burning, atmospheric feeling of dread and high tension.”

Often musicians scare their listeners by adding sudden changes in their music.

Orchestra conductor Sarah Choi thinks that almost everyone fears the unknown, so when the music suddenly changes to a higher octave, lower volume or faster speed, the listener’s ears perk up.

“The listener realizes something is changing in the music,” Choi said. “Whoa, what’s happening? Why is it getting faster? What’s about to happen? It makes you uncomfortable. Or, you could also slow the speed down. As you listen it forces you into a space where you are uncomfortable, and you don’t want to be in a space but you’re being held there in music.”

The composers know that pleasant sounds are associated with happiness, so

by removing harmony from the music, they make the listener feel uncomfortable, effectively wiping a smile off their face.

“You can use rhythms with the idea of setting up something expected, and then you disrupt the pattern and that makes a person uncomfortable,” Choi said. “They might not know why it’s uncomfortable, and that discomfort is making the listener fear that they don’t understand what’s about to happen, and it perks up their senses.”

People react strongest to polarizing changes. When they go from being in complete control of a situation to suddenly not knowing what’s happening, they get scared.

“You only truly feel the beauty, the comfort, the success once you have been on the contrasting side,” Choi said. “And, to see the beauty of going through something uncomfortable, or dark, or sad, you have to have experienced the opposite to understand the other side of it, and I think that plays out in music.”

Like music, art is often created to tell the story of fear and suffering. Artists draw inspiration from gloomy, unstable and depressing aspects of life.

Drawing and painting instructor Kate Wood believes German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer’s use of ash, clay and lead displayed ominous and brooding themes in his artwork.

“Kiefer was born at the tail end of World War II in Germany,” Kate Wood said. “He didn’t live through the war, but was born in a country that was mourning the horrific experiences of it. Growing up in that time period made his work super heavy and depicts an array of emotions.”

Like Kiefer, visual artist Andy Warhol took inspiration from the tragic events happening around him and used it to create a moving display of death and disaster.

“Andy Warhol was obsessed with depicting things around death,” Wood said. “He had a series where he would enlarge images and do big prints of things like an electric chair or a car accident because it was depicted in the newspaper.”

Preoccupied with constant tragic news from newspapers, radios and television, Warhol began to paint images of death, usually taken from newspaper clippings.

These images eventually became the artwork series called Death & Disaster. The artworks consisted of images of plane crashes, car accidents, suicides and electric chairs.

It’s difficult to justify people’s fascination with experiencing terror. For some, art acts as a vessel for people to express their negative emotions in a safe way. For others, it allows them to experience the rush of adrenaline that comes with a jumpscare. It’s cryptic. But that’s just how our brains are wired.

PHOTO / LUKAS PALYS

DACHAULIED The song “Dachaulied” was written by a poet while imprisoned in the camp.

The songs ominous tone reflects the hardships of the composer.

15

edge

On the

L

ike a penniless gambler trudging back into the casino, they know what they’re up against — those slim odds of hitting a jackpot. But just like that despondent yet defiantly determined gambler, they keep going back. It’s almost an addiction.

And it doesn’t really make sense.

If a teenager knows that horror movie is going to keep him awake for days, weeks even, why does he bother taking time to get his friends together, buy tickets and spend 11 dollars on popcorn and candy even though he told himself that he wouldn’t, and sit through two hours of pure horror?

He knows that jump scare is probably coming around the corner, but it still gets him jumping in his seat. And wanting more.

The same thing happens with roller coasters at theme parks: it doesn’t matter that your breakfast is now somewhere on the pavement below or you might even need a new pair of underwear — you’ll gladly scurry to the next one-hour line for Goliath at Six Flags.

So for some reason it seems as if something, whether that’s evolution or years of couch surfing, has programmed our brains to want more and more excitement.

Even if it has you triple checking your closet at night.

16 | Loving Horror

According to Chris Peckover ‘00, experienced filmmaker, Yale graduate and director of the Horror-Comedy Better Watch Out, one of the major reasons people find enjoyment from fear is because of shared suffering.

“I used to love going to horror movies with my friends as a kid because it was a way to connect with my friends over an almost traumatic experience,” Peckover said. “Afterwards, we would all be remembering certain scenes, and as kids, we felt far more connected afterwards because, in our minds, we had just survived something ‘dangerous.’”

Because of their ability to draw people closer, Peckover believes most horror films should be enjoyed in a certain way.

“I think that a lot of horror movies are best played in theaters, because of that shared fearful experience,” Peckover said.

On the other hand, film studies teacher Mark Scheibmeir believes the thrill of horror movies comes from their ability to simulate real-world issues on the big screen. “[Horror films] are sometimes addressing various facets of our culture, but through a metaphor or package where people will watch and find it interesting,” Scheibmeir said. “Oftentimes the world is a scary place, and any-

of

thing we get to experience in movies without actually having to live through it, almost like a proxy of real life, allows us to make the real world a little less scary.”

In addition to mirroring the outside, Peckover holds that good horror movies keep their audience coming back by granting a sense of self-confidence.

“It’s a little twisted,” Peckover said, “but sometimes, when you’re watching a character in a horror film do something absolutely ridiculous, it’s designed that way so you find yourself weirdly rooting for them to almost get slaughtered, and this is because their previous poor decisions have led you to feel superior to them, making you think that you would have done better.”

As a result, Peckover believes horror movies are almost a tool for preparing for the worst.

“Reacting to characters’ poor decisions are almost like little, mini practice sessions,” Peckover said.

“You find yourself thinking, ‘If I were ever in that situation, what would I do?’ And then you watch and come to a conclusion.”

Amusement park thrillers and roller coasters provide almost the same sense of virtual terror, according to Peckover.

“We love the thrill of danger without it being dangerous for us,”

HORROR Some of the most popular horror films include The Exorcist, Saw, and The Shining.

your seat Peckover said. “That’s why we love roller coasters — I don’t know of anyone who would willingly ride a roller coaster if there was a chance you were actually going to fly off the rails. We chase the adrenaline rush while being able to cast the safety net of, ‘Oh, I’ll actually be fine.’”

Director of Marksmen Wellness Dr. Gabby Reed agrees that a large part of the fear-based enjoyment from thrillers, such as haunted houses, comes from this safety net.

“You know, logically, you are in a safe environment,” Reed said.

“There’s people there that will get in incredible trouble if anything bad happens — you know this in the back of your head, but you go in [to haunted houses] pretending you’re in danger, and it gives you this huge rush, even though you’re not actually running from an axe murderer.”

In a similar vein, Reed believes the fear industry survives off of these rushes which have been hardwired into human biology.

“Fear is a primal feeling in humans,” Reed said, “so this is what the industry is are getting at, which is why it’s very profitable.

The jump scares make you feel this rush of energy and electricity that you don’t feel when you’re watching a lecture or something that’s not as engaging.”

However, jump scares and “in

your face” action isn’t the only way to effectively instill fear into audiences, according to Peckover.

“Things like dread are sometimes the scariest type of fear,” Peckover said. “You haven’t even seen it yet, but you know it’s coming. There are some movies that ride entirely without the jumps and without the gore, such as Paranormal Activity. I’ve never seen a movie in a theater before where every single person’s breathing was synced — you could literally hear everyone sucking in breath at the same time.

It was perfectly directing the audience’s expectations with dread.”

Outside of the theater, Peckover believes horror films, and the fear industry in general, offer a few lessons in self-improvement.

“Very generally, I feel like people who are willing to face their fears in fiction often benefit in their lives because they are more adept at parsing out and realizing the differences between what will and will not actually hurt them,” Peckover said. “To all of these fears we create in our heads, we can now go, ‘Oh, maybe it’s not as bad as I thought.’”

Furthermore, facing our fears, whether that be in a movie theater, on the seat of a roller coaster, or in front of a large crowd, is something we can all benefit from, according to Peckover.

“I’ve been in [the horror film]

PHOTOS / CREATIVE COMMONS

community for decades now,” Peckover said, “and very generally, people who love horror movies are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. I think it has something to do with enjoying being vulnerable as a thrill and less fearful as a person in everyday life. You’re practicing for real life, and you’re practicing by saying, ‘What is there to fear?’”

BY THE

NUMBERS 13 billion

dollar amount grossed by horror movies from 1995-2022 Everyday Health

2,400

number of roller coasters in the world today Blooloop

1915

year the first haunted house opened Smithsonian

17

In the Heat of it All . . .

Brendan Kelly ‘23 sat down with his friends in one of the wooden chairs with his food.

He’d just finished a great 3x6 minute piece with his eight. It’s rows like that which make him the happiest. It’s why he’s at Bates.

And like always, he piled his plate high with pure protein. He’s kind of on the bulk. More strength equals better speed on the rowing machine, after all. It’ll probably translate on the water too.

One of his friends had his phone out with BlindTiger open.

There was something about a shooting in Lewiston on there.

But it couldn’t be.

Maine’s so safe. And BlindTiger isn’t that reliable anyway — any college student at Bates can post anonymously to that message board.

They searched it up.

The shooting was real. Shootings, plural, actually.

One at a bowling alley and another at a restaurant. Both were only two miles away.

And the dining hall was open access — anyone could get in without a Bates ID. Kelly dropped his fork and left the table, walking briskly out the back to his dorm.

8:26 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 25

ALL Auburn & Lewiston residents are strongly urged to shelter in place, lock all doors & report suspicious individuals and activities to 9-1-1

by Linyang Lee

The light outside started to dim. Hours flew by — 11 p.m., 12 a.m., 2 a.m., 4 a.m. — and with his eyes finally giving out, he dropped his phone and fell asleep.

7:45 p.m Friday, Oct. 27

Lewiston mass shooting suspect found dead in Maine, officials say He’s sick again — and alone. Since most of his friends lived nearby, they went home to stick together with their families.

The campus was pretty empty. He felt kind of lonely.

Those previous two days were spent doing the basically same thing he did Wednesday night. He just couldn’t think. It was just like sort of a shock state.

“I wasn’t thinking about anything really,” Kelly said. “I was just trying to distract myself.”

When he went back to class Monday, most people were still processing it. His professor had frequented that bowling alley with his kids a lot. Some of his friends planned to go there.

He’d never been to the bowling alley or the restaurant before, but he would still go and make it his first. Lewiston’s so small after all, and there’s only so many businesses there anyway.

“They’ve found the shooter,” Kelly said. “Now they’re just like any other business.”

That anxious feeling he’d felt when he’d first found out, that desire to do anything to distract himself from it and that apathetic feeling he had those..... two days has since disappeared.

They’ve found the shooter.

He’s moved on.

Sitting there, locked in his room made it feel a lot more real.

Kelly didn’t feel 100 percent safe.

He didn’t really want to think too much about it. It was a shock state. His roommate had gotten stuck in the dining hall because of the shelter in place order, and Kelly just sat there — alone.

He watched Instagram Reels on his phone to pass the time, scrolling past rowing video after rowing video.

He watched some TV here and there. Anything to distract... himself.

Forty-eight hours of

Uncertainty

Eighteen people dead. 13 injured. The deadliest shooting in the history of Maine. The manhunt that ensued lasted for two days, during which the surrounding community sheltered in-place — Brendan Kelly ‘23 is one of them.

HIC

18 | In the Moment

AP GR

/J

OS

HG

TH OR OF

TWICE The two mass shootings took place a little over four miles away from each other. Bates College is right in between.

ANTISEMITISM According to the Anti-Defamation League, there was a 36 percent increase of antisemitic incidents in the United States in 2022.

In the midst of

War & Hate

After the Hamas’ attack on Israel, the region has seen the most significant military escalation in almost 50 years. But Joshua Abramson ‘07 won’t let the violence in the region deter him from living there.

HIC

AP GR

H OS

H RT FO O G

/J

When he moved to Israel, Joshua Abramson ‘07 knew there would be violence.

Every time he checks the news Saturday night, he knows he might find a story about a bombing or shooting. Maybe two or three people. Sometimes they were killed, sometimes they were injured.

But never this.

Two hundred killed. At least 1,100 wounded. All in an unexpected Hamas attack on Israel. He just couldn’t put a grasp on the amount of lives that were lost.

Earlier that day, he’d guessed that something big was happening. In his small town of Mitzpe Yericho, most people turn their phones off on Saturdays to observe the day of rest. But around midday, first responders had been told to turn their phones on because of a major incident. The news that night brought his fairly happy day to a standstill.

In the next few days, half of the town’s 20 to 40 year-olds had gone to fight the war, and since then, there’s been a lot of filling that gap. Doing a few extra loads of laundry. Cooking a few meals for others. Looking after a few kids. In a small way,

by Linyang Lee

helping out to do his part his duty to his community.

Abramson hasn’t been affected as much as others have by the war. Situated near Jerusalem, he’s away from most of the fighting. But some of his friends are much closer, and his phone calls with them have been tough. Emotionally charged.

Many in his town have been affected too, linked to the fighting by their loved ones, and Abramson’s gone to pay his respects.

One of his neighbors lost his 19-year-old son in the war. Another man lost his brother.

“Israel’s a very small country,” Abramson said. “If I don’t know you, then I know you through someone else.”

Abramson usually keeps his phone and computer off on Saturdays, using it as a day to totally unplug. But since the initial Oct. 7 attack, Abramson has kept his phone on. Just in case.

He’s never been afraid though. He says his personality’s geared for it — never terribly excited about things and never terribly worried about things either. Even when there’s hate directed at him. Fear doesn’t really get to him.

He’s had slurs thrown at him as he walked down the streets of Dallas as a high schooler. A rock missed his car when he was lost in East Jerusalem Even news about shootings on roads that he’s been on multiple times doesn’t worry him too much.

“A good way to deal with fear is to be responsible for others,” Abramson said. “As soon as you’re responsible for others, whether by being a parent or by being a good neighbor, you’re able to sublimate that worry and fear into action. You stop living in your own head and start implementing your thoughts into actions.”

That doesn’t mean he isn’t cautious though. He’s called his town’s head of security before to ask whether a road that has had shooting attacks on them would be safe to drive. And ultimately, Abramson just won’t let violence deter him from living his life.

“I’m here to stay,” Abramson said.

. . . How Do You React?

19

by Linyang Lee GRAPHIC / JOSH GOFORTH

20 | In the Moment

K

COURTESY / BRIAN HOGG PARADISE OF THE PACIFIC Hogg never thought he would be a dad, but he cannot imagine living life otherwise (top).

Though Hogg misses some parts of Texas, living in Hawaii allows Hogg to enjoy an amazing day at the beach with his family at no cost (middle).

Banyans Beach is, in Hogg’s opinion, one of the top surf breaks, and the annual Keiki Surf Classic is held there (bottom).

ids waded their way through the slick bottom out into the Pacific, surfboards in hand. On their backs, droplets of seawater glistened with the morning sun as they paddled out, away from the volcanic rocks and the parents that lined Banyans Beach.

It was there that Brian Hogg ‘00 stopped his bike. Lifting his one-yearold up off the seat in the back, they headed towards the surf to pick a spot to watch.

Hogg had the day off — and what a gorgeous day it was. He and his son had just been cruising along the West Coast of Big Island on their bike. There was barely any wind that day — and no gust either — making for perfectly glassy surfing conditions. There was a competition going on too, and they watched the kids, known as Keiki in Hawaii, ripping on the waves. As they watched, the waves made their usual calming whooshing sound — that relaxing ebb and flow.

What a gorgeous day.

Short. Sharp. Piercing sounds. Phones were going off.

Hogg looked around, confused. He didn’t have his phone on him. What was it all about?

Moms started screaming and waving their hands frantically for their children to get off the waves.

A guy near him was screaming something with a thick French accent he could barely understand.

The missiles are coming, we’re going to be under attack!

He scooped up his son and walked the bicycle across the street to where he lived. He needed more information.

This French guy wasn’t cutting it.

His neighbors were loading up their cars with weapons and ammo, readying themselves for a post-apocalyptic world.

He figured that he really only had thirty minutes. Probably more than enough time for a missile to fly from North Korea. But there wasn’t really anywhere for him to go. He’s never planned for an attack or natural disaster. The most thought he’d put into it was that if there was lava coming down the mountain, he’d jump into the ocean. If there was tsunami coming from the ocean, he’d run up the mountain.

He had no C-rations.

But anyway, Hawaii would probably only last four days if Honolulu was de-

stroyed. No ships would be able to resupply the islands with food. The missile was probably going to land there too.

His worry would be the nuclear fallout.

Hogg cranked his jalousie windows closed as best he could and pulled the drapes. None of it was airtight. But it was the best he could do.

Really all he could do now was just to accept his fate. Living in the skin that he was in. Hoping that it would miss.

He was going to die.

He sat there and watched his son play with his toys.

Well, at least he could spend those last few moments with his beautiful boy.

Just being able to see him grow up just a little bit. He’d never thought he was going to be a dad. But he couldn’t imagine living life otherwise.

His wife was working that day. And he might never see her again. Every single bit of all their planning and plotting would be for naught.

His parents, who also lived on the Island at the time, told him that they were going to take cover in their neighbor’s lava tube bomb shelter.

“I was like, ‘Well, have a nice life,’” Hogg said.

He frantically scoured the web for any updates he could find. Just to try to understand a little more of what was going to happen.

And soon on Twitter, he found out that it was all a false alarm. There had been some human error that caused it.

“I was just so happy that I forgot to be mad,” Hogg said. “At least I was alive.”

At that time, he thought that he would just cruise the rest of his life — clocking in and clocking out — surfing everyday.

And partly because of the missile alert, he’s started his own business, because he knows that things can change in a blink of an eye.

“A big part of how I live is carpe diem,” Hogg said. “I wake up really early, go to bed pretty late, and do as much as I can with the time I got.”

Hogg isn’t and hasn’t been afraid of a nuclear missile hitting Hawaii. He’s just accepted that it might happen and become numb to it. The weather outshines all that darkness. He’s living his best life.

“It’s just like heaven,” Hogg said.

21

Fight Or

GEARED UP An American soldier is ready for his next mission in the deserts of Iraq.

22 | Adrenaline

Flight

When one’s life is on the line, he must make seemingly basic decisions.

Run or stay. Fight or flight.

However, this decision isn’t as basic as it seems. Factors such as adrenaline can make people go against everything they have planned. And often, the decision is far from the only thing running through one’s brain.

Especially when you have met the wives and children of those who you are leading into battle.

Gabriel Gengler graduated from West Point in 2001 and was commissioned later that year as an artillery officer, just weeks after the United States was attacked on 9/11.

“I get to my unit in the spring of 2002,” Gengler said. “And the underswell of rumors were that we were going to Iraq very shortly, and then the Iraq preparation started.”

Just seconds after their plane touched down in Iraq, Gengler and his unit faced a high adrenaline situation: chemical gas alarms started going off all around them.

“It doesn’t matter whose equipment is what, and you’re freaking out because at that time you think there’s gas in the air you can hear the alarms going off,” Gengler said. “Then we have what’s called Patriot Missile Systems which intercept them and you can hear the interceptions in the air and there’s an explosion.”

by Nolan Marcus, Ben Adams

Gengler’s unit managed to escape into protective metal containers, but the danger wasn’t over then.

“We shut the door in the Kuwait sun which is 120 degrees,” Gengler said. “We started baking in there, and you can’t breathe through the mask and there’s hot air everywhere. So you can hear bodies just hitting the sides of the container, and we hadn’t been in country two minutes when this happened. So we’re like, ‘alright, this is this is going to be a fight.’”

As an officer, Gengler felt an extra responsibility to his men and their families to keep his unit as safe as possible while also keeping their objective. Even with all that was going on around him, these thoughts stayed in his mind.

“That was a big wake up call, and that was the first time where the adrenaline really fired because you want to protect your troops as an officer,” Gengler said. “These troops are like family. You train with them.

You learn together. You work together on an everyday basis. And on top of that, you have unit picnics, unit softball teams, you meet all the spouses and the kids and everybody and it’s like a family, and all you can think about as an officer is, ‘I can’t let anything happen to my soldiers.’”

According to Gengler, the hardest part of a captain’s job is to balance soldiers’ safety and execution of a mission. He did not lose a single soldier in combat during his time in Iraq, and a chief reason for this was his duty to families back home.

“I remember on the flight when we were leaving Fort Hood, one of the wives came up to me,” Gengler said. “Her husband was a

senior non-commissioned officer, and she said, ‘You’re our platoon leader.

Please don’t let my husband die.’”

Adrenaline is created by the adrenal glands. According to the National Library of Medicine, these glands are part of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) which is central to stress responses and neuropsychiatric function according to the National Library of Medicine.

“A stressful event gets interpreted by various brain areas,” Director of Marksman Wellness Dr. Gabby Reed said. “This includes your hypothalamus which sends a chemical message to your pituitary gland which then releases hormones that send messages to your adrenal glands and then your adrenal glands make adrenaline.”

Adrenaline will then run through your body enhancing your strength, speed and intelligence. But when the adrenaline starts to break down, it becomes cortisol, which is not good for you, according to Reed.

“Cortisol is basically the stress hormone,” Reed said. “It messes with your immune system big time. Cortisol is also linked to things like long term chronic illness and weight gain around your belly.”

However in a moment of need, the potential adrenaline gives a human being outweighs the potential long term effects. For example, when taking a test adrenaline could help one think better. If someone is running from an animal, they have a better chance of escaping with adrenaline in their body.

Another part of adrenaline is that each “dosage” one’s body creates only lasts for 90 seconds.

If a person is able to calm down in a more stressful situation, then the body will only make one cycle.

“But if in that 90 seconds you add to the thought of whatever the stressful situation could be then you restart the cycle,” Reed said. “It becomes a turpentine where you become your own stressor pumping more adrenaline into your system.”

The amount of adrenaline one’s body produces is completely dependent on what that particular person considers scary. The body will not make adrenaline if the brain doesn’t think it is in danger.

BROTHER IN ARMS Gengler showcases what his experiences were like in Iraq: constantly filled with adrenalinerushed

PHOTOS / COURTESY GABRIEL GENGLER

23

why can’t I...

by Dawson Yao Dr. CJ Chiang stood in front of a class, her face flushed red with embarrassment. In front of her, clad in white collared shirts and short, ash-grey pants, sat 12 boys: boys who were typically eager to a beautiful language from her lifetime of expertise. Normally, they were fine, and even exciting to teach.

Yet, as of a few seconds ago, the boys were not as composed and as behaved as they normally were. Now, they were laughing, and teasing her for God knows what.

“Woah, Dr. Chiang! Are you calling me a —?!”

What? All I did was say someone’s name. Was that wrong? Where did I slip up??

She had felt this feeling before. That feeling of pure embarrassment that seemed to happen so often here in the States: that feeling where everyone else knew what was going on, but her. It was a feeling she hated going through, since she felt powerless and often confused.

Yet just as years of memories of the same experience were flashing through her head, a student chirped up, explaining that she didn’t actually utter profanity. Rather, it was all just a big misunderstanding: Chiang had simply mispronounced a student’s name - a mistake worsened by her lack of knowledge and a strong accent. It was a silly mix up, and the class moved ever onwards.

But even as her students departed the classroom, Chiang still couldn’t shake that embarrassment. It was a feeling she had felt for ages now.

Ever since she made the journey from Taiwan to the U.S., that feeling never faded.

At first, that embarrassment was a result of simply being an immigrant from a foreign country: the natural mistakes and minute complications each foreigner deals with, no matter how fluent their English is on paper.

“Reading and writing are easier, but speaking was harder,” Chiang said. “I even knew how to spell words, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I can

24 | Why can't I speak?

pronounce it correctly.”

But Chiang was in the states for a reason. Having received her Master of Education from National Taiwan Normal University, Chiang chose to further her education by obtaining her PhD at UT Austin, where her thesis examined the inner workings of autism in learning.

Here, Chiang thrived in the professional environment. Already well-versed in her subject, Chiang quickly learned the language necessary for her field, and her English literacy greatly improved, and it felt like she was making progress.

But yet again, there was still one problem.

Though she was somewhat of an expert in her field, Chiang’s major flaw was that she was still just that: an expert at English in her field. Words like “Rett’s Syndrome” and “Pivotal Response Training” were simply and quite obviously not applicable to the real world. Though her research and education allowed for her to communicate at elite levels in her subject, they took away from her ability to have normal conversations.

“I can discuss really specialized things like autism with so many different words,” Chiang said.

“But, in English, I only knew one word to say snow - I didn’t know words like sleet, hail, and whatever.”

As a result, her lack of vocabulary made her victim of many instances where she either didn’t know how to express herself, or where she said a word that might have been mistaken for profanity. And the very same instances have persisted for as long as Chiang has been in teaching, starting with her first bit of teaching experience in Taiwan, all the way and through her most recent experience with that Chinese class.

And ever since that instance, Chiang’s level of involvement in public events has plummeted she’s still afraid to attend on-stage events, and especially not assemblies.

PHOTO / WINSTON LIN

25

The fears that come from death

by Dawson Yao

A SPARK Pablo poses gloriously in front of Machu Picchu.

PHOTO / COURTESY ELENA ZEBALLOS

26 | Fears from Death

Before it all, Elena Zeballos’ situation was fulfilling and complete. A freshman at Hockaday, her days were filled with navigating high school life, performing in dance concerts, and, of course, spending time with the people who made her who she was: her family. With her mother and father both constantly supporting her, and a ride-or-die brother in Patrick Zeballos ‘26, Elena's life was synonymous with that of the typical teenage high school experience, and she wouldn’t have had it any other way.

And then it happened. Diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, Elena’s mother, Dr. Laura Zeballos, was left completely bedridden, relying on the support of her family to help her get by. And if that wasn’t enough, a global pandemic had just shocked the world, and the family now had to function isolated from each other.

For any other family, even just one of these disasters would have been devastating. For any other family, tensions would have been too high, and bonds would have been broken. For any other family, the circumstances would have simply been too much.

But unlike other families, the Zeballoses had a certain spark - a flame that persisted despite the adverse circumstances. And at the backbone of that spark was Elena’s father - Dr. Pablo Patricio Zeballos - a man with so much confidence and love.

“He had this energy which he used to charm anyone and everyone,” Elena said. “It was just amazing to watch him.”

An accomplished man, Pablo studied and obtained his osteopathic medical degree, which he used to found Interventional Spine & Pain in Dallas. In his more-than-a-decadelong tenure as a doctor serving Dallas, he won numerous awards and distinctions, including being named one of D Magazine’s “Best Doctors” for eight consecutive years.

But in addition to his top-tier medical skills, Pablo’s real spark came from the things he loved. From being a die-hard fan of both the football played by Manchester City to allthings chocolate, Pablo put his heart into everything he did. But perhaps his greatest accomplishment and the thing he spent his most time towards was his family. And for Elena, it showed. A constant supporter in both her and Patrick’s lives, Pablo was always present at games, recitals, and shows.

“We’d do everything together, from little nightly chats, to sneaking out and getting ice cream,” Elena said. “He sat through every single one of my dance shows, even though he didn’t know anything about ballet.”

But on a faithful December 12th night, ev-

erything would change. After falling asleep taking care of her mother, Elena was jolted awake.

‘He’s been rushed to the hospital’ Her mom explained what happened.

‘Brain cancer’ ‘Glioblastoma’ ‘Stage four cancer’ What? What? What?

Her world turned upside down. It was hard to accept it, and even harder not to cry.

Though they’d been barred from researching the cancer at all, they still did.

Highly Aggressive. Life expectancy after one year: 25% . A death sentence.

“It came out of nowhere,” Elena said. “I mean, before, besides his terrible addiction for sweets, he was healthy. He’d run around, play some pickup soccer games, and we’d ride bikes together. There were no warning signs.”

And just like that, the fire - the spark that held the family together - was fading quickly. His personality changed. The person who was once the life of the party had grown weaker and weaker. Soon Pablo lost his voice, his strength, and his mobility.

But even through it all, Pablo did his best.

Not one to drag his family down, he cracked jokes and kept hope alive. Despite numerous surgeries and spending time in hospice centers, he made sure to show that he was more than capable. He was healing, and even had enough strength to attend dance concerts and games.

“He promised me that he was going to see my grandkids, my graduation, and that he would be the one to me down the aisle,” Elena said. “And he really made me believe it, because when your father says something, you want to believe in it, no matter how foolish it is. I also remember talking to my friends, saying ‘I don’t know how I’m going to live without him.”

Sadly, though, the cancer was too great, and nearing the end of April, Pablo had to be confined to a hospital. But within the three days that followed, he was constantly surrounded by family and friends.

For the first day, the line stretched far. With a family friend serving as usher, the room was constantly filled with everyone from old acquaintances to recent patients.

You hired me to make coffee and to teach you how to make cocktails once. I just wanted to thank you.

You helped my mom with her double scoliosis.

Thank you.

You saved my life, Dr. Z. Thank you.

On the second day, the Zeballoses spent time with him alone - all four of them, with Dr. Laura, Elena and Patrick sitting on the

couch wrapped in thick blankets.

And on the third day, Dr. Laura brought Elena to the hospital to say her final goodbyes, where nurses had to knock Elena out to get her to leave.

And on April 24, 2022, the spark that was Dr. Pablo Zeballos peacefully passed away.

“I think it’s normal for everyone to have a fear of death,” Elena said. “I used to have one before.”

But with everything that has happened in the past few years for her family, things have changed. In addition to both her parents contracting life-threatening illnesses, her grandmother was also at the mercy of the same disease as Pablo - glioblastoma. At times, it felt as though their entire family was cursed - Patrick had also fractured his feet, and the family dog had started incurring seizures.

“Everything that could’ve gone wrong, went wrong,” Elena said. “We had to have a priest come in and bless the house at one point.”

Yet after all that, that fear of death from years past has almost wholly disappeared, in favor of a belief in the afterlife.

“Now I’m 100 percent positive that there’s something up there,” Elena said. “I just don’t think it’s physically possible for someone as strong as my dad to just go away.”

But while the fear of death has faded, other fears have risen in its place - one of them being the fear of not having helped enough.

With the diagnosis of her mother, Elena has had to learn to take care of her family on her own - brewing up her own concoctions of Kraft Mac & Cheese and other fast options.

“I constantly ask myself, ‘Am I doing enough?’” Elena said. “I’ve tried to reassure myself that I’ve done all I could, and that I’m doing all that I can.”

In addition to this, Elena is also afraid of forgetting her dad. Though she’s tried to reassure herself that it would never happen, inevitably, certain things will be forgotten.

“Eventually, I’m going to spend more time on this Earth without my father than I have had with him, and I’m just trying to cope with that,” Elena said.

But more than anything, and even having gone past a fear of death, Elena still fears loss.

Having lost both her father and her grandmother, she feels that just one more loss on her plate would just be too much.

“Whenever my mom gets surgeries, I can’t go into the hospital to pick her up,” Elena said. “I can’t look at people getting medicine, or people getting hooked up to IVs, because each time I do, it takes me right back to that night.”

27

The

Devil in a scaley dress

by Will Clifford

It started when I was an innocent first grader. I wasn’t one of those kids who stepped on bugs, or pulled on dog’s tails or threw sand in people’s eyes, I respected nature. Unfortunately, it did not respect me.

One morning, I walked into the kitchen, tossed my backpack into the corner, and sat down at the table for breakfast.

I was about to finish eating when I noticed my dog poking her head around the bottom of my backpack. My dog was very

28 | Editorial

food driven, and in the past, she would tear through bags if she thought that she smelled food. Worried she’d put a hole in my bag, I decided to move it.

But when I lifted it, I was face to face with a snake.

There was a snake. In my kitchen. Not outside. But inside where snakes do not belong.

Before my bag could fall to the floor, I was already standing on top of the table screaming at the top of my lungs: “SNAAAAAAAAAAAKE.” My parents came rushing in

GRAPHIC / JOSH GOFORTH

from the other end of the house and saw me standing on the table. Now in the open, the snake flopped around on the kitchen tiles while my dog continued to sniff it. My dad walked over, took a quick glance down at the snake, and then looked up at me, still perched on the kitchen table.

It was a Garter snake. More specifically, a baby Garter snake that wasn’t even one foot long.

For some people, jumping on a table to get away from a tiny snake would be humiliating. To this day, I’m not embarrassed and I do not regret my decision. It was in my kitchen.

Snakes do not belong in the kitchen. They should be outside.

Ever since that day, I’ve believed that snakes were out to get me.

It doesn’t matter when or where, when I encounter one, I do everything in my power to get as far away from the slimy little devil worms as I can. And when I say ‘everything in my power,’ I mean it.

While whitewater rafting down the Colorado on a family vacation in Moab, Utah I did something that most people would call “one the stupidest thing they’ve heard someone do.” But in my eyes, it was completely justified.

We went through a section of the river where there were no rapids, so we were allowed to jump out of

the boat and swim alongside it. Even though it was hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, I didn’t feel like getting soaked. Instead, I stuck my feet off the back of the raft and held on as I was dragged along peacefully by the current. It was beautiful: the cool water rushing around my legs, the expansive blue sky without a cloud in sight for miles and the monstrous red rock cliffs on both sides of the river. After a while, our guide told us to get back in the boat because we were approaching some rapids. I was pulling the lower half of my body out of the water when I heard my uncle say, “I think I just saw a snake back there.” My heart stopped for a second before I saw that he was pointing at the shore 40 feet behind us. Our guide assured us that in all her years rafting on the river, she had never seen a snake in the water. Being a man of logic, I trusted our guide and lowered my guard. Big mistake.

Right as we entered the rapid field, I felt something drag over my foot. The guide told us to tuck our feet between the wall and the floor of the raft to help secure us inside the boat. At first I thought it was water, but it felt different. It felt like someone had put a rock on my shoe. Confused and concerned I lifted my feet out of the foot-hold and looked down into the crevice.

I bet you can guess what I saw.

A snake. In the boat. Not on land.

Inside the boat. More specifically: it was on my foot.

I sprung out of my seat so fast I accidentally dropped my paddle into the river. While we were going over rapids, I ran around the wall screaming, “SNAKE! SNAKE! SNAKE!” The snake started slith-

ering around in the foothold and I swear the snake was following me.

My sister and little cousins got startled and jumped into their parents arms. It took everyone else a second to see the snake, but once they did pandemonium broke out.

We were still bouncing over rapids and the guide was screaming at me to stop moving and sit back down. I didn’t care. I kept running around the raft, trying to stay on the opposite side of the little beast.

After three laps around the raft trying to dodge the snake, I knew it was time to make a business decision. I had two choices: either stay in the boat and outlast the snake or jump ship. I looked at the snake, and then at the white-crested water rushing by. In my head I thought, “At least I have my helmet on,” and leaped into the frigid water.

I plunged into the river but my life jacket immediately brought me back up above the surface. After drifting downstream for a few minutes, another group pulled me out of the water and into their raft.

I was drenched, but at least I was away from the snake. Even though I got a lot of weird looks, I stayed with the random family in the other raft for the rest of the journey.

Now, you would think that our tour guide would want to get the snake off our boat to make us feel more comfortable, but she had other ideas. She said the snake couldn’t swim so we had to keep it on board until we finished. Riddle me this, how does a snake that can’t swim get into our raft that is floating down a river? Our guide picked up the snake and put it in her backpack. Looking back on it, I think she was insane. Right as we docked, she opened up her bag to free the snake, and guess where the snake went.

Immediately back into the river.

Whenever someone asks me why I’m afraid of snakes, I tell them these two stories. But the reason I was scared in the first place was because I was not expecting the snakes to be in my kitchen or on a boat. My fear of snakes boils down to a deeper fear of the unknown and unexpected. While some people try to overcome their fears, I will continue to stay far, far away from snakes.

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FOAM IN WATER A combination of both water and packing peanuts, a terrifying sight for both Flanagan

invisible sharks & packing tools PHOTO / ANDREW HOFMANN

Unique fears often stem from single memories that develop into full-fledged phobias over time.

Akash Manickam talked about a fear of styrofoam packing peanuts with junior Burke Gordon.

Akash Manickam: When and how did you realize you first had this fear?

Burke Gordon: The first time I realized I had this fear was when I moved houses closer to school.

When we were moving, we were using packing peanuts and styrofoam. After hearing the sound of it, I started getting shivers and I couldn’t turn my head. It was a super, super weird experience.

AM: Do you have any experience with this fear besides moving that you remember vividly?

BG: Not specifically, but using other styrofoam products and saran wrap gives the same response as styrofoam and anything that makes the same sound.

30 | Frivolous Fears

AM: When did you figure out that it was also true for saran wrap?

BG: I’d say saran wrap is a less extreme sound.

Styrofoam is really loud and its bad when you rub two pieces together. But whenever people had food and they would undo the saran wrap, it was not good. I remember when I discovered this fear: there was a prank where you would stretch saran

wrap across a door and a person would walk into it and it was when someone would stretch out the saran wrap. It would make that same sound and I think that’s the first time I discovered that fear.

AM: How would you explain this fear to others who might not understand it?

BG: I would say it’s like the sound of the classic cliche of nails on a chalkboard. If you have that type of fear, you sense more of a shiver. Whenever you hear it, you tense up. It’s just the sound itself that feel bad. It makes me not want to go anywhere near styrofoam or saran wrap.

AM: Do you anticipate that this fear will stick with you for the rest of your life?

BG: Yeah, I think so. Considering it’s a soundbased fear. Like I don’t think the sound will ever get any better. I think I may get more used to the sound but I’m not often exposed to it. I think it’ll stick with me unless I become super involved with styrofoam.

To continue the discussion of unique fears stemming from a memory, Hilton Sampson discussed a unique fear — a fear of water — with senior Patrick Flanagan.

Hilton Sampson: When and how did you first realize you had this fear?

Patrick Flanagan: I was swimming in a pool when I was give, and I went underwater to the deep end and saw a shark swimming at me. It took me a week to realize the shark wasn’t real, but I’ve still been scared of the water.

My older cousin and parents used to throw me in pools and the ocean so I would get over it, but most of the time I evaded them and ended up pushing them in the pool instead.

HS: How does this fear affect your daily life?

PF: I shower very rarely. The amount of tiny sharks shower water could potentially host is quite concerning. The feeling of water is gross and scary, so I try to avoid it when I can.

HS: Do you have any experience in particular with this fear that you remember vividly?

PF: At a tennis tournament, I drank too much water, and threw up on the court. I washed my hands one time, and then my dog licked my fingers. The feeling of the water was already gross, but when he licked my fingers it was even more disgusting and scary, so I jumped, raised my hands up reactively, and broke three dinner glasses as a result.

OPEN WATER Flanagan tries to conquer his fear of water by diving into a lake.

PHOTO / COURTESY PATRICK FLANAGAN

HS: Do you have any coping strategies to manage this fear?

PF: For about two years I would practice holding my breath under water in my bathroom sink to get used to the feeling of being in water and remaining calm. I also spend a good amount of time under water in the ocean looking at and filming sea life. The incentive of practicing my breath and compressing my lungs underwater outweighs my fear of the water. When it rains, I sit outside for 30 minutes and embrace the water coming on to me, so I can try to cope with my fear peacefully.

HS: How do you explain this fear to others who might not understand it?

PF: It’s just like being afraid of snakes pretty much. I’m scared to let it touch me, be engrossed in it, and it feels slimy and disgusting. It’s ok to drink or eat though. It’s probably worse than fearing snakes because water is a more common, everyday object.

HS: Do you anticipate this fear will stick with you for the rest of your life?

PF: Yes, most certainly. Water is eternal. It feels gross, looks scary, and overall just really terrifies me.

PACKING PEANUTS Gordon is terrified of the typical packing peanut seen frequently in shipping boxes.

PHOTO / ANDREW HOFMANN

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Curing Fear N

32 | Conquering Fears

By Dawson Yao, Josh Goforth, William Kozoman

eedles are a necessary part of medicine. Whether it’s to deliver a vaccine or life-saving medication, doctors and patients alike are familiar with them. They also tend to scare people - after all, they’re sharp, pointy objects that pierce your skin. This can result in some trouble for patients, but it shouldn’t be a problem for doctors.

Surely nobody with a debilitating fear of needles would become a doctor.

But for Dr. Riva Rahl, mother of Reagan Graeme ‘26, this situation was her reality. As a child, Rahl struggled with all different kinds of needles. In every circumstance, her reaction was the same: strict repulsion.

“I really don’t like needles,” Rahl said. “Every time I go to the doctor to get my blood drawn, I get all woozy.

This continued all the way through college, where I donated blood and proceeded to pass out and knock out my front teeth.” This strict repulsion comes mainly from what Rahl describes as an innate fear of needles. She attributes the strong sense of fear to a vasovagal response.

According to the Mayo Clinic, a vasovagal syncope occurs when a person faints because their body overreacts to certain triggers,

such as the sight of blood or extreme emotional distress. This is essentially what Rahl experienced every time the thought of needles crossed her mind.

But even hindered by this immense fear, Rahl still chose to pursue the career path of a medical doctor. What began as the passion of a five-yearold quickly morphed into a high school career tailored toward becoming a doctor. Before she knew it, she was finishing a double Bachelor of Arts from Rice University, and starting medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, where her fear of needles resurfaced.

“In my first year of medical school, I went and met the ladies working in blood donation,” Rahl said.

“I was like, ‘Here’s the thing. I’m a medical student. I’m horrible with needles. I know I’m going to have to draw blood.’ And they were like, ‘You can watch first, and then we’ll let you work with the patients.’ But at that point, I had stopped listening. I wasn’t at all ready to work with the patients.”

Faced with such an obstacle, Rahl

GRAPHIC / JOSH GOFORTH FIGHTING THROUGH PAIN Many people have a fear of needles regardless, they have to persevere and deal with them regularly.

decided that the only way to move forward was, naturally, to get over it. With a medical degree on the line, Rahl put together a plan to conquer her fear.

“I forced myself to overcome it in medical school,” Rahl said. “The only way I was going to get used to it is if I donated blood, but you can’t donate blood very frequently. So I would donate platelets, which you can donate around once a week, but it was a two hour procedure.”

By constantly donating blood, Rahl slowly but surely got used to seeing it.

“They take all this blood out of one arm, spin it through the machine and put it back into the other,” Rahl said. “I would go there once a week to the blood center.

They knew I was a student, and I would lay down in the chair and watch them put the needle in, so I

basically desensitized myself to it.”

Eventually, Rahl got over her first hurdle, and began watching other people get their blood taken.

“I didn’t ever like seeing the needle going anywhere,” Rahl said. “But, for all that time when I was sitting for two hours every Monday in the blood center, I would watch all the other people that would come in and donate blood. I was overcoming my fear on my own but also overcoming it by watching other people at the same time.”

But even though her training had prepared her as best as it could, Rahl’s first interaction taking people’s blood still came as an immense shock to her.

“One day, my supervisor was taking the blood of a 40-year-old man when he suddenly left to go to a meeting and just told me to get it done,” Rahl said. “For a moment, I didn’t know what to do. But because people were depending on me, my memory kicked in, and I took his blood.”

Armed with her newfound abilities, Rahl went on to graduate from medical school, eventually becoming a resident at the Parkland

Health Emergency Room, where she dealt with blood and needles on the daily.

“As a chief resident, we often performed what’s called a thoracotomy,” Rahl said. “Somebody comes in with trauma, and you’re basically on the spot because they’re dying.

You have to cut their chest open and do open heart muscle surgery.

We cut things open and sew things closed.”

Now, Dr. Rahl is the Medical Director of Cooper Clinic Platinum at Cooper Aerobics, an institute dedicated to providing high-level physicians to people in need. From someone who was scared to go near a needle to someone who uses them daily, Dr. Rahl advises people that the best way to overcome a fear is to break it down into parts and go from there.

If something is overwhelming, there may be places where you can interact with the fear,” Rahl said. “In my case, getting my blood drawn was something I could do to actually interact with my fear of needles. Prepare, and then gradually desensitize yourself.”

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PHOTO / CREATIVE COMMONS

Yet still, there is so much to fear.

Even after talking about them and unraveling them, all fear just can’t be eliminated. We have to live with it.

So maybe we shouldn’t think of it as our eternal enemy.

Maybe we shouldn’t avoid our encounters with it.

Because if we greet and befriend our fears, do they even remain fears?

After all, fear is just an emotion.

Sure, there are things that are dangerous. Things that are painful. But if we let the danger and pain get in the way of our success — becoming a better man, a better woman — why should we let them hamper us?

So talk with someone about your fears. Think about when your fears started. Hold fear’s hand.

Because if we do, fear won’t be scary after all.

Dawson Yao and Linyang Lee Editors-in-Chief