Hello Everyone,

Welcome to The Invisible Vision Project’s Blog.

Fear is a natural part of life; it’s only human to have them. No one is completely fearless, it doesn’t matter how old they are. We will have fear at every stage of our lives. Even though, fear may never leave us, but maybe, the good thing here is that fear could change as we age, develop and grow. What we feared as a child, we may not fear the same things or the same ways when we become adults. Then at the same time, we may develop new kind of fear as adults, too.

When we are younger, we would often develop fears of material things. As we get older with age, we may grow out of some of the material things that we feared about in the past in our childhood; but, not all fears can be grown out of with age.

Let me give you a personal example, when I was younger, probably around 5 or 6, there was a period of my life where I was so fearful of two of the weirdest things that any one would be afraid of. At the time, I was very fearful of ceiling fans and camera flashes. Back then, no one ever figured out why I would be so afraid of such things that wouldn’t “hurt or bite” anyone. But only until later in life, I realized how sensitive I am to lights and moving objects, and, a part of this sensitivity is related with my visual impairment. So, even though I’ve now grown out of being afraid of ceiling fans and camera flashes, but to this day, I’m still uncomfortable of quick moments and sharp lights.

Light and movement aren’t the only things that I have heightened sensitivity to. I’m also very sensitive to sounds as well. Let me give you another example, again, this happened when I was younger, I was so afraid of the sounds that trucks, especially those working in construction sites; they looked big and scary, and I probably thought that they could somehow “eat” me. Now that I’m an adult, I no longer have fears of those scary-looking trucks, but, loud and sudden noises or sounds are still unpleasant and uncomfortable to my ears.

in addition, if you remember what I said at the start of this blog, I mentioned that adults also could develop new fears as we age. Well, this is at least true for me personally. There are definitely fears I have now that I didn’t have when I was younger. One of my biggest fear now is the fear of losing a loved one. I think, this fear developed because of age and maturity. And, the way how I look at what’s important in my life, it changes with age and maturity as well. People say, “children are so carefree.” This is true to some degree, and because children aren’t typically forced to be mature, they have less to worry about, and therefore, they are carefree. So, it is not as expected of them to be fearful of such event. I mean, it’s definitely tragic and sad when anyone at any age loses a significant someone in life, but, it’s neither expected or typical for them to develop fear after a significant loss.

And, another fear that I also acquired as an adult, that is the fear of life itself. I mean, when I say that I’m fearful of life, I’m not suggesting that I’m fearful of living, or I’m living in fear constantly, that’s not necessarily true.However, what I am saying here is that definitely with age and maturity, I think about life in a more mature and serious manner and state of mind. Also, as someone who have faced life challenges both as a child and as an adult, when I was younger, it’s so easy to leave my life in the hands of my family/parents. However, as a full grown adult as I am now, I’m fully capable of making my own life decisions, which means, sometimes in life, I will have to take chances and even take risks; I will make mistakes, (making mistakes is also a part of living life), and most definitely, I will have fears. Life is exciting but it is also mysterious (or rather, because of its mysteriousness that makes life exciting). Keep in mind: Having fear in life is normal but don’t let it control or overtake you. Be adventurous but do stay well!

So, this concludes my thoughts for today’s blog. I hope it made sense and I also hope you had some great take-aways from reading it!

Thank you for reading to the end!

By: The Invisible Vision Project