Experiments in Life

Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke these immortal words during his 1933 inaugural address: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Saturday, as I climbed the ladder and slowly made the transition onto the roof of my house, I realized how much of that speech was pure propaganda. There is at least one thing to fear other than fear itself — heights. However, I believe that FDR summed up that fear quite nicely with the next few words in his speech, although he was not referring to heights: “… nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” This second quote accurately described my thoughts as I sat on my roof, precisely at the point where the 30 degree slope changed to a 45 degree slope (the top of which is where I needed to be), frozen in terror. There I sat for the next fifteen minutes while I slowly gathered the courage, not to move up, but just to get back down.

I have a rather nasty bit of acrophobia (fear of heights). This is not a new condition — I have had it for as long as I can remember. Long ago, I believe when I was around twelve, my family and I walked up Clingman’s Dome (the highest point in Tennessee, from which one can see five states if I remember correctly). When you get to the top of the mountain (it is not hard, there is a paved road for the half-mile hike upwards to the top), there is an observation tower maybe twenty feet in the air (it could be higher… it was a long time ago) with a two-man-width walkway that winds its way up to the top. I managed to make it about a quarter of the way up before I was shaking so bad I had to start back down.

Although I hate the feeling, I have to admit that it is kind of funny that my palms start sweating when I am watching a movie that shows some particularly bad set of heights. Strangely enough, my fourth floor office at work does not affect me the same way when I look out the window. I try not to put myself in situations where I need to be up high (which is rather funny as well since I am about 6′4″), but sometimes, like Saturday, I think “I can handle it — I really need to get this chore done.” But it just never seems to work out… maybe someday.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 18th, 2005 at 4:10 pm and is filed under Life in General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.