fear

This word lingers after it has been uttered or written. It has a presence, despite its simplicity. It has simple spelling, simple pronunciation, and a meaning that, despite its complexity, is universal. The weight of the emotion overwhelms the word, making it impossible to dissect the latter without dealing with the former. Such is the psychological power of the word that it means something quite different to everyone, and not in that vague everyone-interprets-everything-differently kind of way, but in a genuinely diverse way. Fear is a tangible presence for everyone, and the utterance of the word in a crowd may conjure up a completely different batch of memories for each person present. For each of us, the word is linked not merely to its meaning, but to a very personal web of anxiety and uncertainty. For fear is always uncertain: even when we know what we fear, the emotion would not be itself without some unanswered questions. When will it strike? How will it harm? Who will be responsible? Without these variables, the feeling would be mere dread.