Got Fear?

What are we afraid of?
Over the years of working with strangers in public spaces, I have experienced a great deal of reluctance on the part of people to engage with me and whatever activity I happen to be doing at the time. It feels like anxiety and fear and I don’t understand it. I was planning to speculate a bit this week, but my musings have gotten out of hand and they are holding up the posting. So I will offer my opinion next week- my ideas about this general societal fear center on genocide, denial, the flip side of the Golden Rule and emptiness.
What do you think? Why are people reluctant to engage? Any thoughts or ideas? Let’s hear them.
Regardless of the root of the fear or anxiety or even indifference, I believe that the cultivation of curiosity is the antidote. From my personal experience, I know that curiosity trumps fear. If I want to know something bad enough, I will do whatever is necessary to find out.

So my current regular visits to the Ferry Terminal are motivated by the desire to provoke or stimulate curiosity in the people who pass by each morning. Maintaining a constant schedule and repeat visits to the same location is part of the plan to both reassure people and to provide multiple opportunities for people to find out what is going on.

Unfortunately, because the regularity of my schedule follows the cycle of the sun and not a 24-hour clock, I have already drifted past the earliest ferries to arrive at the terminal. However, come September, the ferry schedules will again coincide with the sunrises, and I will return there for a week or two, offering the possibility to investigate once more.