Submitted by David Boe. David hosts in his SW Portland home and has remained open through the pandemic. 

Before Covid-19 appeared on the horizon, a popular YouTube channel called Vsauce published the latest episode of its Mind Field series. Released a week before Halloween of 2019, the episode was entitled “What is the scariest thing?”

Mind Field’s creator Michael Stevens has a knack for mixing comedy with serious scientific content, and it’s made him one of YouTube’s most bankable stars. His resources allowed him to assemble a unique and diverse panel of world-class experts on fear; a curious mix of authors, researchers and scientists that also included the producer/director of one of the world’s most well known horror films. 

Serious science involves years of tedious research. It’s not usually the stuff of Hollywood movies. Yet it’s Mr. Stevens’ gift to make such things both accessible and entertaining, and he succeeds beautifully here, with one small but significant exception: 

Over the course of the program, the search for the scariest thing is the constant focus, and the question itself is repeated and restated throughout the episode, building up to a big reveal. But the answer he provides in the last half-minute of the video is so dryly clinical as to be almost meaningless. Are you ready? After a 40 minute build-up, here it is: The scariest thing, the single thing that universally provokes terror in all human beings is:

“Elevation of Carbon Dioxide in the Blood Caused by an Uncontrollable External Threat.” 

What? 

It was an anti-climax after such a long build up. As if Dorothy’s house had just landed in Oz, but instead of opening the door to reveal a technicolor world, she just wakes up in a hospital bed, skipping the whole story.

But I quickly realized the point. The preceding 40 minutes had offered up everything I needed in order to fully appreciate why this cold, clinical explanation was indeed the correct answer.  It was never about the destination. It was always the journey.

Now, you may be wondering, what does all this have to do with hosting during a pandemic? Hold on. I’m getting there....

The bulk of the program is an exploration of our most basic, innate fears. Innate fears are present at birth; they aren’t acquired or learned. Although we can learn to manage them, we can never entirely master them; they are always present, encoded in our DNA.

You can easily guess the first two: The fear of falling, and the fear of sudden movement, deeply connected to the startle reflex. 

Here’s where it gets really interesting. Remember that this episode was conceived, written, produced, and posted online the week before Halloween, on October 24, 2019; 23 days before patient zero was first documented in Wuhan, China, on November 17, 2019. Yet watching it today, it’s chilling how fully Covid-19 inhabits the six remaining innate human fears:

*Pain

*Disease

*Isolation

*Suffocation

*Incapacitation

*The Unknown/Abnormal

These all flow from the greatest fear of all, the fear of Death. (Did I mention that this video is mostly a comedy?) In writing this article I am filled with even more admiration for Mr. Stevens’ comedic genius, especially in tackling such a dark topic. But then again, if you harken back to that innocent time before the pandemic, such gallows humor went down a lot easier.

For readers currently living through the worst pandemic in a century, it is immediately clear how directly each of the six remaining innate fears relate to Covid-19: It’s an Invisible (unknown) Disease that Incapacitates its victims with tremendous Pain. Moreover, it forces us into Isolation, and causes Death by Suffocation.

An especially ingenious aspect of the episode is that it is structured like a horror movie, and even includes an interview with Sean S. Cunninghan, the producer/director of Friday the 13th and many other films. The program uses this movie connection to explain how fear is maximized in horror films through something known as “category jamming.” 

Category jamming is a technique that has been perfected over many years. It’s why a character like Freddy Krueger in Nightmare on Elm Street is so terrifying: Several of our most basic fears are piled one on top of the other to multiply the terror.  It also explains why movies like the Alien franchise are so effective: unknown creatures hunt human prey, isolated in a spacecraft where air could run out at any second. It even explains the logic behind a movie about Snakes on a Plane: People already fear both snakes, and flying. Putting them together creates a confluence of terrifying factors including fear of falling and sudden movement.

How does this relate to hosting during a pandemic? 

The pandemic we’ve all endured over the last year is a lot more like living in a horror film than anyone realized. But not just any horror film. This seemingly endless movie moment is category-jammed with all of our most basic, innate fears, and they have been more effectively stitched together in real life than any horror film. 

For me, the concept of category jamming was a light bulb moment: It’s no wonder we’re all so stressed and disoriented. We’re simply not built to live with so much fear, and there are numerous studies that show the adverse effects of constant stress (though I’ve seen none as yet, about the pandemic). Our bodies are evolved for fight or flight; something that ends in a matter of minutes, or maybe hours, but not days or weeks on end. Months or years? We’re not built for that.

From a hosting perspective, every guest is potentially Freddie Krueger in a hockey mask, carrying a Texas chainsaw in his oversized luggage. Every child is The Good Son. Every toy is Chuckie. 

From the guest’s perspective it’s just as bad: every host is Norman Bates welcoming them to Hotel California: You can check out any time you like, but (if you catch Covid) you might never leave (alive, that is). 

As a home-host, welcoming guests into my own living space, these issues are compounded. It’s no wonder that on many of my days off (when no guests are around, no arrivals scheduled) I’ve found myself unable to get out of bed, sad to the point of incapacity, weeping for no good reason that I could figure out. Until now. 

I simply didn’t appreciate that we are being category-jammed by the most frightening monster of them all: Our own imaginations, as fueled by the combined resources of the entire planet’s news, information, and entertainment industrial complex. 

Dealing with it

It’s said that acknowledging the reality of a situation is one of the first steps toward healing. Working through the anxiety and the range of other emotions brought on by a year of lockdown and isolation is no easy task. But luckily, the same advances in science and technology that allowed us to create a vaccine and find effective treatments for COVID-19 also offer a number of proven strategies to help us deal with such monsters, both real and imagined.

Exercise your knowledge and your body

Once you appreciate the full scope of what's going on emotionally (i.e. in addition to the physical dangers we face, we’re also being held in a psychological prison by a tiny, invisible invader), there are many ways to help reduce your fear and anxiety. Two of the most important are related to movement, both physical and mental. 

More than any time before, during the pandemic I’ve come to appreciate the value and the volume of information that now resides at our fingertips. Educating yourself about the realities of COVID-19 is an effective way to gain a measure of control over the situation. And of course, a daily walk with my beloved dachshund, Buddy, does wonders for dissipating the monsters too. 

The bottom line

Hang on, and stay as healthy as you can by exercising both your body and your mind. You’ll need them both for the next Renaissance.

_____________________________

An Airbnb Superhost since 2016, David Boe has welcomed more than 1,100 guests into his home in Portland’s West Hills. This article is based on his experience of personally hosting more than 50 trips between April and December of 2020. David is a charter member of Host2Host, and is also the author of Secrets of an Airbnb Superhost, and Walk With Me, Discover Hoyt Arboretum in Portland, Oregon, based on the Airbnb Experience he created in the Arboretum, which is within ½ mile of his home. Both books are available on Amazon.com.