Why Do We Love Scary Stuff?
Why Do We Love Scary Stuff? What benefits are there to allowing yourself to be scared?
You know all those internet posts that tell you about an event or an experience? And all those that share information? Well,this post isn&';t one of those. This one asks a question &n-; Why Do We Love Scary Stuff?. And I&';m hoping for some answers.
This is Halloween month in the US. Ghosts and spiders and skeletons everywhere. We walked by one yard that had skeletons driving the dirt-moving equipment. Scary stuff! Well, except the skeletons were wearing safety jackets.
And some houses have put up jack-o-lanterns. Oooh!
My dad used to bring home the school movies and show them in our basement. I&';d watch them in the basement with his students who were several years older than I was. My sisters would retreat to their bedrooms for the horror films. Apparently only hearing a scary movie is worse than also seeing it. But who knows if I had my hands over my eyes or not. The scariest was The Bird by Alfred Hitchcock. Well, that was the scariest one that I remember.
When my dad was growing up, he and his brothers would try to gross each other out, during dinner. I can&';t quite believe that my grandmother let them get away with that. She wasn&';t nearly that lenient with me.
So, why are some reasons that people like scary stuff? And have humans always been this way? I don&';t know the answer, even though I&';ve written four horror books and covered some scary topics in other books . (Enter scary into the search box on my website.) Don&';t worry, they&';re not that scary. They&';re lite-horror. Even though, I grew up watching lots of scary movies, they&';re not my first pick.
Some people like to gross others out. That&';s OK, maybe even funny, until I puke on you. OK, I wrote one book that might gross you out. Guilty as charged. But only one book.
Some people like others to be scared, so that they&';ll move closer to them for protection. There are much better reasons to want people to be closer to you.
We want to be scared in a controlled environment. That will (maybe) help us be more stoic in the face of disaster. We don&';t want to be scared when a spiders sidles up beside us. Neither do we want to show fear when someone offers us curds and whey.
I&';m aware of those answers. But don&';t find them satisfying. Reply if you have an answer.
Why Do We Love Scary Stuff?
