Atychiphobia

     Atychiphobia: the fear of failure, usually caused by demeaning parents or traumatic embarrassment early in one’s life. 

   I am shocked when I read this definition of atychiphobia. Fear of failure is the very thing that I suffer from, yet my condition is resulted by the exact opposite of the cause stated above. My parents are always the most supportive of my decisions and are the first to acknowledge my achievements when I succeed. I have no traumatic experience of embarrassment due to failure; in fact, I have never experienced any major failure in my life. Yet the fact that I have little experience of failure is the very reason that I am afraid of failing.

   I see fear as the result of unfamiliarity of something new. I have overcome many kinds of fear just by forcing myself to face them and having experience dealing with them. When my parents told me to go to the grocery store alone for the first time, I was terrified. I was afraid of the ongoing traffic, the strange faces on the sidewalk, and the thundering noise of the busy street. Yet I overcame this fear easily as I went alone more often and had more experience. The same case applies to my fear of failure. I am used to being praised by others and receiving applaud for my success, but I don’t know how to deal with failing. Unfortunately I cannot overcome this fear with my usual method, for I will not intentionally make myself experience failure just to learn how to cope with it. Achieving success appears to be the only way to appease my phobia.

   I remember reading an article suggesting that young people should make mistake while they are young, for they will not repeat themselves after they grow up. Yet as I become older and gain more expectations and responsibilities, I feel even harder to accept failure. A year before I joined a voluntary tutor group that tutors elementary students at their spare time. I soon became the leader of the group and ran the session together with an inexperienced new staff who was not much older than I. Once when I found out that a deck of cards that the group used to entertain the children had gone missing, I was obsessed with finding the cards. I even cried because I thought I failed as a leader and was not being responsible for the group’s supplies. Later the staff told me that she had taken out the cards and forgot to put it back, and that even if the cards were lost I will not take any responsibility for it since I am only a volunteer. Yet the sense of responsibility following my title still haunted me and reminded me that I could not afford to fail. My fear of failure is growing deeper as I grow older and is not lessening with my aging at all.

   The fear of failure can transform into the fear of success, as sometimes the fear will prevent me from even trying to achieve success. One of my philosophies is that I don’t do things that I am not confident to be the best. The statement sounds good as a philosophy, but in fact it is merely a way to hide my cowardliness to fail. One thing that fear has prevented me from doing is playing piano. When I gave up playing piano ten years ago because I don’t have the talent for it, I decided to hide the fact that I failed by claiming that I did not like playing piano. The excuse got me into many fights with my parents, yet it calmed my fear and rejected my failure. I still feel foolish for being obsessive over such a minor failure, yet the fear that causes this obsession is not easy to overcome.

   Phobias are all irrational fears. Yet my fear is not like phobia of concrete objects; fear of an abstract idea is usually stronger and harder to overcome. In my case, my fear of failure can be so strong that it ironically brings about the very failure that I fear. I really hope that I can overcome this fear in time.

Quote Analysis of Lord of the Flies

     In Lord of the Flies, William Golding sets up a miniature replica of society with children on a deserted island. Many symbolism and allusion are used throughout the story and three quotes in particular are very effective in articulating the novel’s moral theme. In the beginning of the novel, the boys gather for the first time and decide that they need to have a chief to make decision. And one of the boys, Roger, proposes that they should “have a vote” (P18). This is perhaps the fist allusion to government and civilization in the novel. The children, despite their lack of maturity, attempt to build a government similar to that back home on the island. They try to mimic the procedure of a government by voting a leader, having meetings to make decisions and enforcing rules. The children are so influenced by the rules enforced on them back in England, that even when the people that enforce these rules are gone, the children are still on alarm. The imposed morals give the children a natural inclination towards civilization, which they view as “morally right”. However, as the story progress, this inclination is disappearing among the children and is replaced by their savage instincts. The lessening of the restrictions of morality appears in Chapter 4 where Roger throws rocks at Henry, a boy younger than him. Yet there is “a space around Henry…into which [Roger] dares not throw” because he is still restricted by “parents and school and policemen and the law” and “conditioned by a civilization…in ruins” (P64-65). Roger does not have a reason for throwing rocks at Henry, but his act is rather an instinctive thirst for freedom and wilderness. The quote shows that comparing to morality, which is enforced upon rather than inherited, savagery is more instinctive and inborn in mankind. The last part of the quote also hints that a war is going on in England and civilization is degenerating both on the island and back home. The degeneration shows that civilization, which takes a long time to establish, can be destroyed and turned into savagery as simply as picking up a rock to throw or staring a war. Similarly, the chant that the boys sing after killing a pig signifies a further step into savagery. As the boys carry the dead pig back from the forest, they sing “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.” (P72) At this point the boys are completely immersed in joy from their first taste of savagery. Ironically, while they hunt, they let out the signal fire on the mountain and a ship passes by without noticing them. The signal fire is the boys’ only hope for rescue and only connection with the outer world. The extinguished fire shows the boys’ disconnection with civilization and their degeneration into savagery. The hunters seem rather indifferent about the fact that the rescue ship is gone, and is rejoicing over their kill. They now, instead of longing for home, desire to enjoy the freedom they have on the island. The fact that their prey is a pig relates to a character nicknamed named Piggy. Piggy is discriminated against by other boys because of his unattractive appearance. His real name is never know, which shows that he is seen not as who he truly is but who he appears to be. He is regarded as fat and useless even though he is actually very intelligent and knows what is right and wrong for the boys. Piggy is symbolic for intelligence in civilization, yet pigs are hunted down and slaughtered by the other boys. This signifies the boys’ desire to distinguish civilization on the island and degrade into complete savagery. The step by step degradation of civilization implied in the story is shown through the book’s heavy use of symbolism. Significant characters and events in the novel all have their part in the allusion to human nature and the society. The above quote are the most effective in comparing mankind’s civilizing instinct and savage instinct, and their part played in degeneration.

Textism? Txtsm!

     As mobile text messaging and internet communication technologies develop, a seemly inferior branch to the English language is born out of the convenience to communicate on electronic devices. This simplification of words and expressions due to difficulty of writing words on a numeral pad is referred to as textism. While some anti-textism advocates strongly oppose the use of text messaging words in more formal situations, textism can also be viewed as a step towards literacy development instead of a corruption of the English language. Textism is mainly blamed by teachers and linguistics for its defiance for the standardized rules of English and its ‘savaging’ of the use of words. But the emergence of textism itself shows the unlimited potential of the language. English is able to be condensed to its limit to create convenience for people while still successfully retaining its original purpose as a method of communication. Language exists to help people communicate, and textism aids this purpose by creatively twisting and turning English around to help people communicate more easily in text messages. Another reason for textism to be considered inferior is probably fear for its taking over and replacement of the standard English. Nevertheless, Textism, though much different from formal English, is able to coexist with English just as colloquialism coexists with formal English. Just as people are able to switch back and forth with conversational English and formal English, textism is also interchangeable with formal English. Textism itself will not interfere with the usage of English, not any time soon. Even if far into the future, textism will actually replace English, it is not necessarily a bad sign. Textism is concise, yet its use of visual and symbolic representation of emotion can effectively express what takes formal English many paragraphs to describe. As for lovers of literature, formal English texts do not need to be distinguished. Just as how Old English and Middle English texts still remained today in a world which does not speak these forms of English anymore, English can still remain even if the world is adapted to using textism. Textism should not be considered as a degradation of the language but a step helping the literacy development.