What is fear, anyway?<\/p>\n
The most interesting thing about fear, in my opinion, is that it\u2019s an emotion that has no opposite number. Every word I can think of that comes close to the opposite of fear \u2013 contentment, boredom, lassitude and so forth \u2013 they come close, but not nearly close enough. I think it\u2019s because how we deal with fear, and perhaps more importantly, how we think about it once it\u2019s in the rearview mirror, does so much to define whatever we do next, after those particular marker buoys in our lives.<\/p>\n
None of those fear inducing events are what you expect. I can tell you from firsthand experience what fear is like from the perspective of every sense you care to mention. When you\u2019re on top of a grain elevator taking pictures of a levee holding back the floodwaters of the Missouri River and the levee breaks, fear is the feel the tips of your shoes make as you hurry down the metal ladder alongside the tower. You\u2019re sliding down the side like it\u2019s an inflatable chute at the Bounce House and you\u2019re wearing the work gloves you would otherwise reserve for handling the klieg lights because in this case, you don\u2019t want to rip your hands to shreds as you slide down the ladder and only your toes are knocking against the rungs. The zipper rush of the water across the levee is getting closer and after having seen those same waters rip a house off its foundation, you\u2019re pretty sure that the grain elevator you\u2019re on won\u2019t be standing for much longer. The feel of the tips of your shoes as they lightly touch the rungs while you slide down the ladder, and the thunkthunkthunkthunkthunk sound they make\u2026 that\u2019s what fear physically feels like.<\/p>\n
Fear is the dry taste in the back of your mouth when you watch one tornado drop out of the sky outside of Limon, Colorado while you\u2019re driving back to the station, and a second tornado drops down alongside it. The sound of fear is sometimes the absence of sound\u2026 like when you\u2019re third riding on a rig, and it\u2019s your job to administer CPR while the paramedic drives to the emergency room and you stop hearing a heartbeat. Fear smells like ethyl alcohol and formaldehyde when you walk through the halls of a hospital. You woke up in San Francisco but you\u2019ll be going to sleep in Birmingham because six hours ago you got The Call. The one from home that said if you don\u2019t get here as quickly as possible, you\u2019re probably never going to see or talk to your father again.<\/p>\n
The easy one, it would seem\u2026 the gimmee of the bunch is what fear looks like, but that\u2019s not true. There isn\u2019t a monster under the bed, nothing is waiting in the closet and there aren\u2019t any ghosts in the attic. When we try to visualize fear, the vast majority of us have the great luxury of letting our imaginations do the heavy lifting. What we fear might happen is a visual mental exercise. What actually frightened us, when we recall those moments\u2026 I think we often remember those times with our other senses.<\/p>\n
Me? I am, of course, afraid of the dark.<\/p>\n
Is there anyone losing their sight who isn\u2019t? Of course, it\u2019s really more representational than literal. The dark represents a giant stop sign, a force field that materializes wherever you go. It gets plunked down at the end of the sidewalk where there isn\u2019t a good curb cut so you don\u2019t get a good feel for where to cross. It blocks my way to every website where the designer decided it wasn\u2019t worth the time or effort to make the Open Table, Kayak or Uber sites a place where I can\u2019t do in an hour and half what would take a signed person five minutes or less to polish off on their way to something else. It lands with a thud on a restaurant table when the check comes at the end of a date. If you ever want to know what emasculation feels like, just so you know, it\u2019s the point when you have to ask your date what the total is and then for help writing the tip\u2026 and your signature\u2026 in the right place. What does the dark look like? It\u2019s the look of all romance leaving the table when your date has to tell you how much the meal costs. Darkness has nothing to do with the absence of light. It has everything to do with every reminder that you\u2019re not quite as independent as you thought you were.<\/p>\n
Or at least not yet.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been back and forth over the working title for the expedition over the past few weeks. I was torn between two ways of describing it\u2026 this effort to explore the world through the richness of color. Of exploring the world one color at a time. At first, it seemed thinking about this journey would be most meaningful in terms of a prism\u2026 the explosion of color that emerges from something as simple as a clear block of glass. That idea of clarity producing such unexpected vibrancy seemed like the way to go.<\/p>\n
However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized this was just not an idea that was working. The whole idea of a prism is to take something that is unified and break it up into its component parts. What I\u2019m trying to do is take those different colors and put them together – to see what we come up with at the end.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s why this expedition is called the Palette Project. We\u2019re starting with separate colors and putting them together. I\u2019m trying to create something here. It\u2019s a bit of a puzzle, but that is, in fact, what I like about it. As with any good documentary, if you know what you\u2019re going to end up with before you begin, you\u2019re not doing it right. \u00a0What I do know is the palette of colors is varied and rich, but the reason my team and I are going to be diligent in creating a trail is so that we can know when it\u2019s a good idea to stray from it.<\/p>\n