of serious but reasonable concern:
mediocrity. complacence, stagnance, inertia. mental or physical pain beyond my control, the cessation of which is undeterminable.
irrational, evoking unreasonable responses:
snakes. this phobia developed, for no apparent reason, 3 years ago. initially it was so bad that if i was flipping through a magazine and chanced upon a photo of a snake, i’d fling it away. hot potatoes don’t get dropped that fast.
now my reaction to them is not quite so ridiculous. i can watch them on tv, but not for an extended period of time (by which i mean anything more than 20 seconds). i can walk through the reptile enclosure in the zoo at a reasonable pace but not without battling with a major case of the heebie-jeebies in the process.
and i will never touch one. never never never.