Cherophobia

It works differently for everyone. For some it is the fear of the dark, for some the fear of light. For some it is ghosts, demons or generally the unknown. Some of us are afraid of the water, heights, women, foreigners, a variety of animals, obscure objects, a lot of foods, hell, even the air. You name it, and there is someone it scares shitless. There is no real logic or pattern to it. I may be terrified of sourness or mirrors or spiders or opinions, and there's nothing I can do to explain the 'why' to you. Especially because even for the lucky(?) few whose phobia stems from a real event in this lifetime, the brain invariably erases the traumatic memory to help maintain sanity (so at least the stimulus is external and avoidable, otherwise half the population would generally be restive, on edge and jumpy if not cowering under the table and screaming hysterically). Since there is normally no logic or pattern, I cannot help you understand what makes something throw all the wrong switches in my head and I cannot hope to understand why something seemingly benign to me does the same to you.

But the complete lack of a pattern is a pattern, though not in the obvious sense. To say there is no pattern, would mean there is no way to tell if a phenomenon is a manifestation of or a point on the pattern. Thus something that lies outside the pattern helps define the pattern. This distinction is provided in the definition of phobia itself. One word -irrational. So anything that is a rational fear is not a phobia. Which brings us to the definition of rational - based on or in accordance with reason or logic.

How do we define logical in the context of human behavior? Complicated, since everyone is unique and if left to their devices, everyone would have their own reaction to every situation, and in case of a seemingly similar reaction, the reason behind the reaction may not be. So we have to delve deeper, to the very driver of every single human action, inaction or reaction. I believe it is the pursuit of happiness.

Let me justify. It explains all our actions, inactions and reactions. I shall not go too deep into the definition of happiness, since that is another discussion in itself.  The general understanding of happiness we have, will suffice for now. For normal people, or in normal parts of peoples' lives, day to day actions at large e.g. going to work, school, doing household chores etc are all attempts at happiness in the future, with varying turnaround times. Work brings money, which brings material essentials and luxuries within reach (turnaround time generally 1 month). School allows us to work (Tat 12 to 20 year). Chores allow us to administer the stuff money buys (Tat 1 to 6 hours). These also contribute to other forms or stimuli for happiness such as a sense of purpose, being better than your neighbor or siblings, approval, guilt avoidance, a feeling of security etc.

The more specific actions work towards similar goals, though possibly, in less obvious ways. Dodging death is done to avoid the associated pain and to be around to be happy. Heck, even sex, a critical function, to propagate the species had to be designed to be pleasurable, else we ran the risk of extinction. I think the point has been made, and we can get back to the core of the discussion. The driving force behind every human action tends to be the pursuit of happiness. So logical and hence rational action in human terms is anything that is meant to lead to happiness.

Coming back to the original point, the pattern. The rational fear. Logically the only rational fear is that of being unhappy. But fear of unhappiness can only be, when we're happy. So happiness is the root cause of our greatest fear. Never happy, never afraid of being unhappy. It is bulletproof. This must lead to a fear of happiness or cherophobia (if I may), since something that causes you to fear something else, cannot be desirable (hence cherophobia is not really a phobia, since it is not irrational, but a universal human fear, but that is not the point of the discussion).

But being unhappy all the time is not really an option. It would drive the vast majority mad. From where I see it, the only way out is complete indifference. Or permanent happiness.

Familiar? Karmanye vadhikarastye... (read up if you care) and on the other hand the promise of eternal happiness. Religion strikes again. Right at our deepest fear.